All Men Are Blind to the Future
by dieUnerbittlicheFuchs
Summary: Brendan and Lucas are pretty similar, really. They both grew up in labs, they both just got their starter Pokemon, and they're both about to get in way over their heads.
1. 10 Years Old

Chapter 1. 10 Years Old

Gales, I decided, are horrible. Especially when you are out in them. Even more so if it is your birthday, and you are walking across town, with the wind cutting through you like a knife through soft butter. April is the cruelest month. Sorry, Tom, but you've never been in a south Hoenn thunderstorm in July. The good news about the horrible weather was that it was guaranteed to keep Dad inside, so I wouldn't have to go halfway to Oldale Town to find him. He hates being cooped up in the lab, but he hates being out in the rain more.

I walked up the last hill on the road to the lab, eager to get there as quickly as I could. I didn't like being out in storms much, either. I ducked under the overhang of the lab and walked around to the front. Pulling open the glass door, I stepped inside and wiped my feet on the mat.

"Ah, Brendan, there you are. I wondered how long it would take you to get down here." A man with green hair in a white lab coat said as he walked toward me.

"Hey, Joshua," I said, "Is Dad here? I thought he might be, with the rain and all."

"He's in the back. Oh, and he wanted me to tell you that you're going to need to use your head more if you're going to help with research. Your mother would kill him if anything happened to you, and being reckless is a great way for something to happen." He smiled as he said the last part.

"Thanks," I said, letting Joshua get back to his work. I smiled sheepishly when he mentioned using my brain. I knew it wasn't the best idea to come here during a storm, but it was the only way I could get Dad in the lab for sure. Just like Joshua said, Dad was in the back. He was hunched over his laptop, entering some data he gathered last week while he was out doing fieldwork. He looked up when I came in, probably glad to take a break from being a data monkey for a while.

"Didn't take you too long to get here," he observed. I rolled my eyes.

"Good to see you, too, Dad. I came as soon as I knew you'd be inside."

"Well, it's your birthday. You're ten years old now, and that means you can have a Pokémon. You know what three I have. Which one would you like?" he said, walking over to a table with three Poké balls on it.

I thought for a moment, as I had many times over the last month. "I'd like Mudkip, please."

He tossed me the Poké balls containing the mud fish. "There you go," he said, smiling. "Why don't you go home and get to know each other a little bit. Maybe have your mother freak out because you didn't get the cute chicken."

I smiled at that. Mom always said that I sold get a Torchic, because it was cute. I thought the generally calm water type would suit me better. Torchic tend to be running from place to place all the time, and I didn't really want to have to keep up with one for my first experience as a trainer.

I thanked Dad for the Mudkip and headed back home. The rain had stopped, so the trip back home was much easier than the trip to the lab. When, I got home, mom was in the kitchen making dinner.

"Hi, honey," she said when I walked in, "Did you get your Pokémon from your father?"

I shook my head. "Am I that obvious?" I asked.

"No, you're just ten," she said. "And you're my son. You would have gone over there if the town was half flooded, just to get a Pokémon of your own."

"I'm taking him upstairs to say hello. I'll be down in a bit." I told her.

"All right," she said, as I walked up the stairs. "Tell Torchic hello for me." "About that..." I said, releasing Mudkip onto the stairs.

"Kip!" it cried happily.

"BRENDAN BIRCH!"

"Yes?" I asked, poking my head around the railing.

"WHAT IS THAT...THING DOING IN THE HOUSE!?"

"What, Mudkip?" I picked it up. "He's mine. Dad gave him to me at the lab."

"It's not living in the house." She said, then turned back to her cooking to prevent any kind of argument on my part.

"Good thing I won't be, either," I muttered under my breath. I carried Mudkip up the stairs to my room. I sat down on the bed at set Mudkip next to me. It looked up questioningly.

"Mudkip?" It asked. I put my hand on its back.

"How are you doing?" I asked it. "You want to go traveling with me?"

"Kip!" It chirped. "Mudkip!"

Mudkip and I stayed in my room until it feel asleep on the bed. I left it to sleep and went down to the kitchen. Dad had come home shortly after I did, and was being yelled at by mom for not making me take the Torchic. He was trying to explain himself, but she was having none of it.

"Come on, you can't expect me to force Brendan to be around a Pokémon he doesn't want. He's going to need a partner he has a bond with immediately if he's going to help me with fieldwork."

"He's not going all over Hoenn to help watch Pokémon build nests. You already spend enough time out there, gone for a weeks at a time."

"This isn't about me, and you're only making it about me because it makes you feel better to have someone to blame. Oh," he said, noticing me in the doorway, "Brendan, we were just talking about you."

"I heard," I said, trying to sound disinterested. "Mudkip's asleep upstairs, so I thought I'd come down here to not wake it up."

"Good idea," Dad said. "Mudkip's still young; he needs time to rest."

We ate dinner, and I went back to my room. Mudkip woke up when I entered and greeted my cheerily.

"Have a nice nap?" I asked.

"Kip!"

I laughed. "I'll take that as a yes, then. Want some food?"

"Mudkip!"

"What should I feed you, anyway?" I wondered. "Maybe, I should go ask Dad what he has for you. It would be what you're used to, probably." I stepped to the door and opening it to find Dad holding a bowl with Pokémon food.

"I thought Mudkip might like something to eat," he said.

"You were dead on. I was about to ask you what to feed him."

"Just give him this. I'll give you some food for when you go out. And you'll be able to buy some pretty easily, most towns will have a store that carries food for various Pokémon."

"Mom doesn't seem thrilled with the idea of me helping you," I said.

Dad grimaced a bit. "Well," he said, what she doesn't know won't hurt her, not for a couple of days, at least." He handed me the bowl and started to walk out of the room.

"What do you mean by that?" I asked.

He stopped at the door and turned. "Could you leave tomorrow?"

I cocked my head. "Leave to go where?"

"Petalburg City. I have a friend who's moving there to become the new Gym Leader. At the very least, you can be helpful while he moves in. It will take you a couple weeks to get there, so your mother will have a month to get used to the idea of you being on your own. She'll probably hate me for it, but, well, she'll get over it eventually."

"Sure. How do you plan to get me to get out of here without Mom noticing, though?"

"That's the easy part. You're going to be coming down to the lab to help me enter and sort some data. I would have needed you to do that even if your mother wasn't so against you leaving. After lunch, you'll head out toward Oldale Town."

I looked at him blankly. The idea of basically running away for a month didn't really appeal to me that much. I thought about it for a moment. One the one hand, I would have to wait for years before Mom was willing to let me go and help Dad with his research, and there wasn't much to do here in Littleroot in the meantime. On the other hand, my father was suggesting I skip town without telling anyone so I could make my mother panic so much she stops caring. That didn't seem like that great of an idea.

"Great," I said, "I'm going to get some sleep, then. See you in the morning."


	2. Do I Have to?

Chapter 2: Do I Have to?

It was raining when I woke up. The rain dropped rhythmically on the roof, lightly giving the morning a soundtrack. I got up, took a shower, and got ready for the day. I grabbed my bag, and set my beret on my head before going down for breakfast. Grandpa was downstairs drinking coffee and reading the newspaper when I came down.

"Morning, Lucas," he said, then went back to his paper.

I threw some bread in the toaster and grabbed the butter out of the refrigerator. When the bread popped, I slapped some butter on it and dashed out the door toward the professor's lab. I didn't _think_ I was late, but I hadn't had a chance to check my Pokètch before leaving. I reached the lab as I was finishing my last bite of toast. I opened the door, and ran straight into to the professor.

"Oh, uh, s-sorry, Professor Rowan," I said, "I didn't see you there."

He looked at me sternly. "Of course you didn't," he snapped, "You need to watch where you're going more."

I ducked around the professor and went inside the lab, where I distracted myself by organizing all of the files that various aides had removed and failed to put back where they belonged. They were all terrible about that, leaving things all over the lab. I usually cleaned up after them, because it was something I could do without screwing up. At least the filing systems have labels telling me what goes where.

After lunch, I was sweeping up the remains of a mishap with a paper shredder when Professor Rowan walked up to me.

"I-is there something you need, Professor?" I asked.

"Come to the back room when you finish here. I need to talk to you." He spun on his heal and turned around, leaving me standing with a broom and an open mouth. This way going to be terrible. I must have done something so bad that he didn't want to let anyone else know about it. Hopefully it wasn't something that wasted hours of everyone else's time.

I finished sweeping up and went back to the professor's office. He was working at his desk when I came in, so I stood in the doorway. I had been standing there a while when he looked at his watch. The movement broke his concentration on his work, and he looked over at me.

"Lucas! How long have you been there?" he asked, looking slightly annoyed. "Say something next time."

"Sorry, professor, it's just that you were working and-"

"I'm always working, Lucas," he interrupted. "Waiting for me to finish means you'll have to wait until I start falling asleep at my desk. Hm, this is good, though; it brings me to why I wanted to see you."

I rocked on my heels, waiting for the professor to tell me that he wants me to never come back because I messed up one time too many. He was going to start listing my flaws any second now. I braced myself to leave in shame and not leave the house for a few months.

"You need to be more confident, Lucas," Professor Rowan began, "That's why I called you in here. I want you to travel Sinnoh for a while. Hm! You'd also be decent for running errands when you're in some of the bigger cities. Yes, that's a fine idea. What do you say?"

I stood there, completely lost. I thought he was going to tell me to get lost and never come back, but this? I wasn't sure if he was serious or just trying to find a creative way to get me as far away from the lab as possible.

"Well? Don't just stand there with your mouth open, that's quite rude." He folded his hands under his chin. "Everyone needs to go on a journey sometime, and you need to realize that you aren't as hopeless as you think you are."

"I-I'm not sure if that's a good idea, Professor," I said, leaning on the door frame for support. "Sinnoh's a big place, and there are wild Pokémon out there. I couldn't take one of the lab's with me."

"Nonsense! You'll be taking one of the Turtwig we give to new trainers. There's one that's a little more energetic than the rest; it'll make a fine companion for you."

"But what about Rachel and the rest of my family? I can't just up and leave them. And what would my father say? He'd never let me go." I was trying any argument I could think of at that point. Going all around Sinnoh sounded like a good way to get somebody dangerous very mad at me. It tended to happen when I was in a crows.

"You think I wouldn't ask my senior aide if it was all right to send his only son across the region?" the professor asked, his eyes widening. "Just how senile do you think I am? Of course I talked to your father, we've been thinking about it for weeks."

"Now," he said, taking my silence as an excuse to end all argument, "Go home and pack; you're leaving early tomorrow morning. And take Turtwig with you, it would be better if you got to know each other before you ended up in Jubilife."

I left the professor's office and went to where we keep the Pokémon we give to new trainers. They lived outside the lab, in a small, grassy enclosure with a small pond and rocky outcropping.

"Hey, Lucas!" Sean, the assistant who takes care of the Pokémon before we give them out, called. "You don't come out here very often. What can I do for you?"

"Hey, Sean," I said, walking over to him. "The professor wanted me to get that Turtwig that's a little bouncier than most."

"Sure thing," he said, "It's just over here." He led me to the pond, where several of the small Pokémon were sunning themselves on the bank. "He we are," he said picking up the one closest in the water, "This is the one he's talking about. It's a feisty one," he added, as the Turtwig tried to wriggle out of his arms. "Do you want the poké ball, too?"

"Yes, please," I said.

"It's just over in the box by the door. Top left corner."

I went over to the small wooden box and opened it. There were little pieces of wood dividing the box into compartments where Pokè balls were sitting in their miniaturized form. I grabbed the one in the top left corner and went back to where Sean continued to struggle with the Turtwig. I put Turtwig back in the Pokè ball, said good-bye to Sean, and went back home.

Rachel was lying on the floor reading when I got back. When she heard me come back in, she jumped up. "Lucas!" she yelled, running up and hugging me.

"Hey there, little sis," I said, picking her up and walking into the living room. "How was your day?" I didn't get to see my sister as often as I would have liked, because I was working at the lab so much these days. I took time off for her fourth birthday last week, which was the first time I'd gotten to spend a whole day with her in months. I felt a twinge of sadness, knowing it was going to be a long time before I saw her again.

"Good," she said, "I helped grandpa with the flowers and then I helped him make cookies!"

"Sounds like fun to me," I told her. "Did they taste any good?"

"Yeah! You need to eat one!" she said. I put her down, and she ran into the kitchen and grabbed me one of grandpa's famous chocolate chip cookies."Here you go!" she said, handing me the cookie.

The cookie was warm to the touch. I took a bite, and it fell apart in my mouth.

Rachel looked at me. "Do you like it?" she asked, nervously.

I smiled at her. "Of course I do. I'm home for the rest of the day. What do you want to do?"

"Let's play outside!" she said, her green eyes shining as she began to bounce a little bit.

"Sounds like a plan," I said. "Just let me put my bag down, and the we can go to the park."

"Ok!" she said, and sat down right in front of the door.

I laughed and then went upstairs to drop off my bag. I decided to put Turtwig on my belt and take it with us to the park. I'm not sure if just having a Pokémon near you makes it more friendly, but I figured it was better to keep Turtwig where it couldn't get into any trouble.

Rachel and I walked across town to the park, where we spent the rest of the afternoon playing in the grass. When it started to get dark, we went home. When we got to the house, before going inside, I stopped.

"Rachel?" I asked.

"Yes, Lucas?" she said, looking up at me.

"I…I have to leave tomorrow."

"Leave to go where?" she asked, confused.

"The professor want me to travel Sinnoh," I explained. "He wants me to go all over the region, to see all of the cities and to help him in other towns."

"Oh," she said. She looked thoughtful for a moment. "When will you be back?"

"I don't know," I said.

She was quiet the rest of the night. Completely unlike her usual bubbly self. Even my dad, who was usually too wrapped up in his work with Professor Rowan, noticed. After dinner, I took her upstairs to her room to get her ready for bed. I read her favorite book as a bedtime story, and she giggled at my voices like she did every time, but there was a hint of sadness. When I finished, she looked up at me.

"Lucas." she said.

"Yes?"

"I don't want you to go."

"I don't either," I told her, "but I have to. And you need to be strong for me, ok?"

"Ok."

"Alright then," I said, tucking her in and giving her a hug. I started to leave the room, but stopped at the door after I turned off the light. "Rachel?" I said.

"Yes?"

"I love you."

I went back to my room and sat on the bed. I stared at the wall for a long time before I heard a noise from the other side. It was soft, as though muffled by a pillow, but I could tell it was Rachel, crying herself to sleep.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't do the same.


	3. Baby Steps

Chapter 3: Baby Steps

The storm had moved on when I woke up the next morning. Sun was streaming through my window, giving the entire room a soft glow. Mudkip was sleeping quietly on the foot of my bed. It stirred when I got up, but quickly went back to a deep sleep. I left it to its dreams and went to shower. This was probably the last shower I'd get before I got to Oldale Town, and that would take a couple days, at least. Mom was downstairs making breakfast when I came down.

"Morning, dear," she said. "Your father's already gone off to the lab, but he wanted you to get there as soon as you can."

"Alright," I said, stealing bacon from the cooling rack next to the frying pan. She slapped at my hand, but missed. "I'd be able to leave faster if you let me eat food as soon as it was ready," I joked.

"You're going to sit at the table like a civilized person," she said. "Now, shoo. I'm going to ruin your eggs if you don't leave me be."

Mom and I didn't see eye to eye all the time, which was one reason why I was leaving without telling her, but that doesn't mean we didn't get along. Sure, we'd have our squabbles, like the one last night, but I'd say that we were pretty happy overall. I just hoped that she'd understand why I needed to leave and go travel. I wasn't going to be able to help Dad with his research, which I'd wanted to do for years, if she wouldn't let me leave town. Having someone out in the region was invaluable for a professor; it gave them so much more flexibility with fieldwork and communication.

I ate breakfast and then went upstairs to grab Mudkip and pack for my trip. Bless whoever came up with collapsible tents. They make everyone's life so much easier, because they only take up half of the space in a bag. That leaves room for useful things like food.

I threw several jumpsuits in the bag. Joshua has told me a while back that they were good for keeping myself so bugs didn't feast on me. They were also very light, which stopped me from overheating in the jungle that is my home region. That worked well enough for me, and I'd worn them basically nonstop for months. When I finished packing, I looked at Mudkip, who was just starting to wake up.

"Mudkip." It said, its eyes half closed.

"Come on, Mudkip," I said, picking up its Pokè ball. The mud fish looked at me expectantly. "What?" I said. "You want to be lazy and sleep in your Pokè ball all the way to the lab? I don't think so." I picked it up. "You're going to be out in the open."

Mudkip grumbled a bit, but didn't try to get down from my arms. I said goodbye to Mom, trying to seem as normal as possible, as though I was just going off like I did every couple of days to help out with some menial task that Dad was too ADD to handle himself. I usually took my bag to the lab with some food, so she didn't get suspicious about that. All in all, I thought I had managed part one pretty well.

Because the lab was on the opposite end of town from my house, it took about half an hour to get there. It's one of the reasons that Dad's never around when I get up: he leaves around 6 to get in as much work as possible. Usually, he just leaves a note if he wants me to go to the lab or pick something up. He never leaves notes for Mom, though, so I'm beginning to think that they have a hive mind. Actually, I've thought that for years, but I digress.

I went straight to the back room where Dad would be waiting. I hate having a messy workspace, and he can't keep one clean for more than 15 minutes, so he was almost certainly cleaning off his desk so I could actually do things before I left for Petalburg.

Sure enough, there he was, moving the last stack of papers off his desk and finally making the place habitable. He looked as though he had forgotten that it was almost time for me to show up. That honestly didn't surprise me very much. Dad was, everyone agreed, a brilliant Pokémon researcher, but that didn't mean he was necessarily organized. Or sane, for that matter. He was always late and unprepared for interregional meetings, to the point where Joshua was expected to handle all of the presentations. Hopefully, I'd grow into that role with some experience as a researcher and a presenter. Just as long as Dad didn't do it. Nobody wanted that to happen again.

"Alright," he said, "Here's what I need you to do. Enter in these data I collected last week, then have the computer run the standard tests on them. Once you finish that, come find me and we'll get you outfitted for the trip to Petalburg. I have food and some supplies I keep here at the lab for fieldwork that you can use."

"Sounds good to me." I said, sitting down at the desk. I looked at the papers he wanted me to put in the computer. It was a bunch of notes on the berry preferences of some Poochyena clans living on route 101. Apparently, even total omnivores have preferences. Entering the data was tedious work, so I kept Mudkip around for conversation. Lazy Pokémon fell asleep in less than five minutes. That meant that I spent the next hour and a half entering data in total silence. Not my idea of a good time.

I had just finished when Mudkip woke up. Such perfect timing. "Come on," I said, getting up, "Time for us to get our stuff."

"Mudkip!" it said, hopping down from the desk.

We walked into the next room, where we saw Dad and Joshua were unpacking a box on a table. "What's going on in here?" I asked, moving over to see what they had unpacked. It was just a lot of plain white bags, plied neatly on the table. Clearly, Joshua was in charge here.

"We're taking inventory," Dad explained. "This, and those, are all of the food we keep here for people and Pokémon alike." he gestured toward more boxes stacked in the corner, "We already counted those out. This is the last box. You'll be taking most of it, actually."

"That's a lot of food for two weeks, don't you think?" I said, looking at the dozens of packages they had taken out of the box, which was only about half empty.

"Yes," Joshua said, looking up from his sorting, "But the truth is, we just don't have the room for it here. Besides, this might spare Norman from the terrible takeout in Petalburg. Wouldn't wish that stuff on my worst enemy."

"And you'll need some of it for the way back, too." Dad added.

"The way back?" Joshua looked incredulous. "It's not going to take him more than a week to get to Petalburg. He'll be going at a reasonable pace, unlike you, who gets distracted every time you see a Taillow."

"I'm not sure how much of that I can carry, anyways." I said, trying to get everyone back on subject. "Why don't I get my bag, so we can stuff it as much as we can and then leave the rest of the food in other boxes."

After a bit of a fight with the zippers and some creative rearranging, we managed to fit about half a boxes' worth of food into the space left in my bag. My tent stayed on top, so I wouldn't have to do the entire process again every night. Most of the food was dehydrated, meaning I could cook it by heating it in a pot, which we also through in. There was also food for Mudkip, which we put into a side pocket. All in all, my bag now was now completely filled, all six cubic feet completely stuffed with provisions. It was still surprisingly light; I didn't have any trouble lifting it.

"Well," I said, "I guess all I need to do is eat and hit the road."

"Yep," Dad said, "We've got some stuff here to make sandwiches, you can have one before you go. Wake up Mudkip so it can eat, too." I looked over it where Mudkip was sleeping. Again. Really, do they need 16 hours of sleep a day, or did I just get the laziest Pokémon in all Hoenn?

"Come, on Mudkip, we're going to eat." I said. It sprang up immediately. Yeah, this is a Snorlax in disguise. Nobody can tell me otherwise.

After lunch, I put Mudkip in its Pokè ball and started out. I looked at the map Joshua gave me before I left the lab, as I walked out of town. Oldale Town looked to be about 50 miles north of Littleroot, meaning it would take me a couple days to get there. It would take another few days to get to Petalburg from there. Probably a week or so total trip. There were a couple of small hamlets between here and there, but mostly I'd be walking on the road without anybody else, unless somebody passed me on their way to see Dad at the lab.

I walked for the rest of the day and stopped about six hours later. Mudkip spent most of the day in its Pokè ball; I couldn't expect it to walk with me for 10 miles in the kind of heat we get down in Littleroot. I found a spot on a raised piece of land a few yards from the road, and set up camp there.

"Come on, Mudkip," I said, letting him out of his Pokè ball (Joshua had checked the files before I left: this Mudkip was a male). "We're going to go get some firewood." Finding some broken brush wasn't that hard, and most of it was surprisingly dry. The hard part involved me nearly getting burnt by the fire almost as soon as I light it, which caused Mudkip to quickly douse it with a Water Gun. Which meant I had to do the whole thing over again. Added to the to do list: catch a fire type.

After I rebuilt the fire without getting burnt, I opened one of Mudkip's food packages and set it out for him. He happily munched on the food that Dad had given me before we left, and I really hoped that buying more in Petalburg wasn't going to be too expensive. I had to eat, too.

I got out the pot and one of my food packets. I told Mudkip to use Water Gun to fill the pot, and then I left it to boil. The sun had set by that time, and the stars were shining dimly off in the distance. I sat and watched them for a bit. I used to do that at home a lot, just sit outside and look up at the sky. So many other people could be doing that as well, all over the world, all with their own thoughts as they looked up. It always seemed a little special to me, to be looking at the same sky as Professor Oak or Professor Elm.

"Kip!" Mudkip said, drawing my attention away from the sky. He gestured towards the pot, which was now boiling steadily. Must have drifted off for a bit.

"Thanks, Mudkip" I said, tearing open the food packet. I poured in the contents before I looked at the labeling on the packet. Cream of mushroom soup. That would probably be better food in Sinnoh than the jungle covered Hoenn region, but food was food, and I wasn't going to waste it now.

After eating, I sat in front of the fire for a while. Mudkip fell asleep shortly after he finished eating, so I was left to look after the blisters I had gotten from walking by myself. Naturally, I had brought a first aid kit, so the only difficult part was dealing with the sting of the alcohol I used to treat it. Once that was done, I laid back and looked up, slowly drifting off to sleep.


	4. The Lion and the Mice

Chapter 4: The Lion and the Mice

I left Sandgem Town before the sun rose. It seemed easier, leaving before the rest of the world was awake, because I didn't have to see anyone who could make me want to stay. The Professor hadn't really given me any specific places to go, so I thought I'd start by heading toward Jubilife City. It would be three full days' walk, then I would check in with Professor Rowan and see if there was anywhere in particular he wanted me to visit. I let Turtwig out of its Pokè ball for a bit of fresh air, which it responded to by running around me as I walked like some kind of Houndour. I passed some people on bikes going down to Sandgem Beach for a day of fun. In the small towns I passed through, everyone was out and about, tending to the front garden or chatting with the neighbors over some lemonade. A slight breeze was blowing, and the sun shone brightly. It was a beautiful day.

I sat down for lunch in an open field after about six hours of walking. I was exhausted by that point, and quickly drank an entire bottle of water. I had brought several of them so I could go a couple days without refilling, but if I came to a stream, I would fill everything up. They had filters on them, so I didn't need to worry about anything getting in my drinking water I didn't want.

I sat on the ground, breathing heavily. _I need to drink while I'm walking_, I thought. I looked down at the grass for a minute, then opened my bag and got out something to eat. The professor had had me pack a mix of dried and canned foods. For lunch, I had lots of nuts and dried fruits and meats. For dinner, there were lots of soups and stews. Dad told me that I would have to restock in Jubilife City, but said that all the kinds of food I would need would be at the trainer's store. And, since I was on the lab's budget, I didn't have to worry about paying for anything.

"Come on, Turtwig, let's get you some food," I said, looking around for it. Turtwig was sleeping in the sun a few feet from where I was sitting. "Oh, right," I said, "You're a plant. You don't need to eat. Ok, then."

I ate some fruit and meat I had rationed before I left Sandgem Town and then woke Turtwig up and started on my way. Route 202 starts north out of Sandgem, then turns west for a while, then north again, another length to the east, north again, west, and then north to Jubilife City. I was, according to my map, about halfway down the first western section of the route. Hopefully, I could get to the turn north tonight; that would put me in Jubilife in a couple days.

The weather turned hot in the afternoon, and when I walked into a little village a couple hours later, I must have looked like I ran the whole way there. I was covered in sweat, and my steps were getting shorter and heavier with every second. This was at about 3:00, long before I was planning on stopping for the night. I was beginning to seriously consider asking around to see if I could rent a spare room from somebody in town when a little girl ran up to me.

"Have you seen my Shinx?" she asked, sniffing. Her chocolate coloured hair was falling across her face, and her eyes were bleary. She looked to be about four or five.

"Nope, sorry," I said. "I haven't seen anything but some Starly."

" Jen! What are you doing?" A woman yelled rushing toward us.

"I'm looking for Shinx," the girl, Jen, said. "I'm asking this boy if he's seen him."

"I could help you look for him if you want. I'm sure he didn't go too far."

"Yay! Yay!" Jen said, jumping excitedly.

The woman looked at me. "Alright," she said, sighing. "I think Shinx went into the forest just off the path to the west of here. I need to take Jen back home, then I'll help you look, ok?"

I went out of the town and came across the forest in about 10 minutes. Sunlight streamed through the gaps between leaves, giving the forest a cheery atmosphere.

"There you are!" said the woman from before. "I think Shinx is somewhere in this forest. There aren't any wild Shinx around here, so any you find will probably be it. If you find it, yell for me."

"Sure," I said, "Oh, before you go, what's your name? So I know who to yell for."

"Oh, right, how rude of me." she said, shaking her head. "I'm

We headed off into the forest in opposite directions. I let Turtwig out of it's Pokèball after I'd taken a few steps.

"Hey, Turtwig," I said. "We're looking for a Shinx. Say something if you find one, ok?"

"Turt!" It said nodding.

We looked around for a while, but didn't see Shinx, or any Pokèmon at all, which struck me as odd. Usually, route 202 is bustling with flocks of Starly and groups of Bidoof and some Kricketot, but there was nothing around at all. Not seeing anything for over an hour was very unusual.

"This seem odd to you, Turtwig?" I asked the Tiny Leaf Pokèmon. It nodded, then perked up.

"Did you hear something?" I asked.

"Turtwig!" it shouted as it dashed off. I took off after it into a thicker part of the forest. I chased Turtwig through the underbrush until we reached a small stream. It was being dammed by some Bidoof under the supervision of a couple Bibarel. The Bidoof were busily rushing to and from piles of sticks and mud, gathering them and moving them into place. Well, I thought, they aren't Shinx, but they are the first Pokèmon we've seen since we got to this forest.

"Those aren't what we're looking for," I said, looking down at Turtwig and shaking my head.

"Turt!" It said gesturing with its forepaw towards one of the piles of sticks. "Turtwig!"

I looked at the pile, and saw a couple Starly drop twigs onto it. They quickly flew off again, and a pair of Bidoof grabbed the newly dropped twigs and scurried back to the stream.

"Hey, Turtwig," I asked, "Can you go ask one of the Bibarel what's going on here?"

It shouted something as it rushed off towards one of the Bibarel. The Biberal looked annoyed at first, then started talking to Turtwig. The two Pokèmon talked for a few minutes, then Turtwig came bounding back to me.

"Does it know where Shinx is?" I asked.

"Turtwig!" it said, starting off toward the river bank. I followed it, earning some strange looks from the Bidoof. Turtwig led me down to the edge of the stream, where many Bidoof were carrying mud up to the main damming site. Among them, I saw a tuft of blue fur. It belonged to one very dirty Shinx. The Shinx was helping the Bidoof move mud from the river bed to the dam, and it had gotten mud all over itself.

"Shinx!" I called waving my arms.

It looked up. "Shinx?" it asked.

"Come on, Shinx,"I said, walking toward it. "Jen and Jessica are worried about you. You should come home."

Shinx looked at one of the Bidoof, who nodded. It ran up to me, and we started back toward tube edge of tube forest. Jessica was waiting for us when we got there.

"Shinx!" she said, once she saw it. "You had us worried! And you're filthy. What have you been doing today?"

"There's a colony of Bidoof damming the stream in the forest. They've recruited the local Pokèmon to help out with the construction," I explained. "Shinx was down there with them."

"Well, I'm very glad to have Shinx back," Jessica said. "It's getting late, and this stopped you from walking farther. The least I can do is offer you food and a bed for the night."

"I can't ask you to do that," I said, backing up and holding my hands out.

"That's ridiculous," she said. "Look, the sun's already starting to set. You'd be stopping around now anyway."

The sun was, as I pointed out, most definitely not setting. Yes, it was starting to slide down the western sky, but there were around two hours of daylight left.

"Alright, look," Jessica said, starting to get annoyed. "You're coming back with me, because I need to do something to thank you, and Jen well want to say thank you too. There will be food and a bed for you. If you want that to go to waste, that's fine by me. Otherwise, you can eat the food and sleep in the bed. Got it?"

"Yeah," I said, "I guess I'll go."

The walk back to the village took about ten minutes. Jessica led me to a house on the edge of the village, and we went inside.

"Jen!" she said, "We're back!"

Jen popped out of a room off the main room. She ran up to Jessica and looked up anxiously.

"Did you find Shinx?" she asked.

"Yep," I said, "Shinx is right here."

Shinx stuck its head out from behind us, and, seeing Jen, ran up to her.

"Shinx!" Jen said, bouncing up and down excitedly. "I missed you so much!" She picked Shinx up and gave it a hug.

Jessica took me to the spare bedroom, and then I went to go and train with Turtwig. There was a small grassy field behind Jessica's house, so we went there. Mostly training was me throwing sticks and Turtwig firing off Razor Leafs. It's accuracy improved as the session went on; the first one nearly impaled a Starly that was perched in a tree.

Dinner was simple, just sandwiches out where Turtwig and I trained. They were delicious though, the tomatoes sweet and juicy from the garden, the mayonnaise fresh and creamy. It was like being home for one last day.

I went to bed much happier than I thought I'd be after a day on the road.

**Beta profile will be open soon. Send me your stuff when it does. Chapter 5 has a few hundred words already, but I can't promise it'll be soon, though it'll be faster than this.**

**Happy Writing!**


	5. Welcome to Petalburg City

Chapter 5: Welcome to Petalburg City

Night was falling when I entered Oldale Town after three days of walking. Not that anyone could tell. Another thunderstorm had popped up in the afternoon, and had been going strong for a couple hours, meaning I was dripping when I walked into the Pokémon Center. It was a quiet building on the west end of town, in an open field set away from the shops and restaurants nearby. This part of Hoenn is extremely sparsely populated, so the town of 3000 people seemed almost like a metropolis to most in the area.

The building was almost completely empty when I went inside. A couple of Trainers were talking in the lobby, and a young woman was talking to the Nurse Joy at the counter. I stood in the doorway for a minute, looking around the center.

I was starting to walk to the counter when I was poked from behind. I turned to see a Chansey holding a towel out for me.

"Thanks," I said, taking the towel and starting to wipe off my face and hair.

The Chansey waved and wandered off to do something else. I went up to the counter and stood behind the woman.

"Alright, Ms. Dundee, your Poochyena will be here sometime next week. I'll give you a call when it gets here."

"Thanks so much," the woman, Ms. Dundee, said, walking away from the counter.

"Yes?" The nurse asked. "What can I help you with?"

"I'm on my way to Petalburg City," I said. "I've been told that I can stay at Pokémon Centers, but I'm not actually sure how that works."

"Well," Nurse Joy said, "Every Pokémon Center has rooms available. They don't have anything fancy, just a bed and a desk. Shared bathrooms for each sex on every floor, for those that have multiple floors. They're free to stay in, too, as long as you have a Pokémon with you. Here, take a key."

She handed me a key with a piece of plastic on the end with a 6 written on it. "We'll have sandwiches out here in a few hours and toast in the morning. Does your Pokémon need to be healed?"

"It should be fine," I said. "It hasn't battled anything yet."

"Alright, then. Have a nice day!"

The rain was still heavy enough to drown a small child, so I decided to go to the room. I grabbed a few Pokémon research journals that were by the front desk, then went down the hallway to my room. Nurse Joy was right: the place was barely big enough for me to turn around in. Still, it was a free bed, so I wasn't going to complain.

I flipped through the journals. There had been some new research from Professor Elm's lab about breeding categories, and Professor Ivy described a new hypothesis on why there were many Ice Pokémon found only in island caverns. Other than that, there was nothing but guesswork about Pokémon psychology.

I got bored of that after the third crackpot article, and fell asleep with the journal open on my head. Mudkip took that as an invitation to sleep on me. Mudkip weighs only slightly less than a small child. Maybe about the size of a two year old. I woke up after half an hour, coughing and sputtering for breath.

"Ugh, Mudkip, get off," I said, shoving him off my face. Mudkip shot me a reproachful look as he landed on the floor. "Sorry, Mudkip, but you're heavy. I can't breathe with you on my face."

Mudkip went to the end of the bed, hopped up, and went back to sleep. I sighed, then decided to head out into the town to explore a bit. I glanced out the window, immediately changing my mind when I saw the rain lashing at the glass. Instead, I went out to the lobby. The two trainers from earlier were gone, and the Nurse Joy was reading a newspaper. I looked around and found the pamphlets the center has about the other cities in the region.

Pokémon centers are only found in (relatively) large urban areas. There were a couple of tiny settlements of five or six houses between Littleroot and Oldale, but nothing nearly large enough to justify the cost of a center to the Pokémon League. Oldale was the largest town for miles. Littleroot only had about 1500 people, and Dad's lab took care of most injuries to Pokémon in town.

I picked up a pamphlet on Petalburg. Compared to Littleroot and Oldale, it was huge. "A regional center of commerce and industry, Petalburg City has over 150,000 people, making it the fifth-largest city in the Hoenn region." Wonderful. I hope the Gym is on the outside of town, otherwise I'm going to have to wander around and ask strangers for directions. The city was about 50 miles west of Oldale; about a 3 day walk. The Gym and Pokémon Center were both on the north side of town, in a section of the city dedicated entirely to Trainers. Dad never told me where the Gym Leader lived, but I assumed that he would be in the Gym during the day. I decided I'd go there, and see if he could give me directions to his house. From the sound of it, he was a bachelor. Anyone with a family probably wouldn't need to call on me to help with the move.

I thumbed through a couple more pages on the city, then had an idea. Gyms had phones, as did the Pokémon Center. Why not call the Gym Leader and see what he wanted? I went back to the front desk.

"Excuse me," I said. The Nurse Joy looked up from her newspaper. "Does this Center have a phone I can use?"

"Sure," she said, getting up from behind the desk. She walked over to a PC. "Just use this to place your call. There's a receiver on the side of the monitor. Do you know the number of the PC you're calling?"

"No," I said, shaking my head, "but it's the PC in Petalburg Gym. Is there a phone book I can use to look up the number?"

"I have one at my desk," she said. "I'll go and grab it." While she went to retrieve the phone book, I opened the phone application on the PC.

"Alright, here it is. Petalburg Gym is 85932. Anything else?" she asked as I typed in the number.

"Nope," I said. "Thank you." The computer took a minute to find the number. The screen went black, and a low tone began to come from the receiver. After a few seconds, a man picked up on the other end.

"Hello, this is the Petalburg City Gym, Norman speaking. How can I help you?"

"I'd like to speak to the Gym Leader, please."

"You've got him. If you're wanting to schedule a challenge, you'll have to wait a bit. I just got here a couple days ago, so I'm still moving in and setting up the Gym."

"That's actually what I wanted to talk about," I said. "My dad, Professor Birch, is sending me over to help you settle in. I wanted to know where I should go once I get to Petalburg."

"Oh, yes, you must be Brendan," Norman said, "James told me that your were coming. Thanks for coming to help. Anyway, we're going to be living above the Gym, so all you have to do is get there. I can give you directions when you get into Petalburg."

"Sounds good," he said. "I've got to get back to work. See you in a couple days." With that, he hung up.

I left the next morning, heading west on the muddy path out of Oldale. Lots of Wurmple were out in the morning sunlight, nibbling on shoots and leaves. The air weighed down on me as though it was a blanket thrown over my head. After three days of walking, I was getting a mile every 20 minutes. After a little more than two hours, I ran across a boy with a Poochyena.

"Hi!" he said. "I haven't seen anyone on this road in a while. Where did you come from?"

"Oldale," I said. "I'm on my way to Petalburg City."

"Are you a Trainer?" he asked excitedly.

"I guess so," I said. "I just got my first Pokémon a couple of days ago. I haven't battled anyone yet." I figured I knew where this was going.

"Wanna battle Nash?" Yeah, I knew where it was going.

"Sure," I said. I pulled out Mudkip's Poké ball. I pressed the button the let the Pokémon out, and it materialized on the ground next to me.

"Mudkip," it chirped. It looked at the Poochyena, which had moved in front of its Trainer, then looked up questioningly.

"Battle time, Mudkip," I said. I was getting the distinct impression that Mudkip was thinking about spraying me in the face instead of battling the Poochyena, which unnerved me a bit. Clearly, he thought better of it, and he moved up to face the Poochyena. The two Pokémon locked eyes and stared at each other. I started at the boy, and he started at me. And we waited.

"Um, yeah," the boy said, scratching the back of his head. "So, I've never actually done this before. How are we going to do it?"

"I was hoping you'd know," I said, chuckling a little. "I have no idea."

Our Pokémon looked at us as though we were the most idiotic humans that they had ever heard. The Poochyena growled at Mudkip, who promptly sprayed it in the face with a Water Gun. It leapt up in surprise, letting out a yelp as it did so. Mudkip ran back and stood in front of me again. The Poochyena ran towards us, its pride clearly offended.

"Um, try and bite it, Nash," the boy said. Nash charged in and bit Mudkip's hind leg as he was trying to get out of the way. Mudkip blasted it again before scampering off.

"Can you do a Mud-Slap?" I asked.

"Mudkip!" he said, picking up a clod of dirt and flinging it at Nash. It hit the Poochyena square in the face as it moved toward Mudkip. Nash had to stop and paw the mud out of its eyes, giving Mudkip enough time to move around behind it.

"Tackle it, Mudkip," I said. Mudkip launched itself at Nash's back and knocked the larger Pokémon into the mud. Mudkip rolled off the Poochyena, which ran back to its Trainer, looking warily at Mudkip.

"Well," the other boy said, "It looks like Nash doesn't want to battle anymore. Congratulations, I guess. Come on, Nash." The two ran off into the trees north of the path. People around here are strange I guess. Mudkip and I looked at each other, then walked on until we made camp that evening.

It's easy to forget what day of the week it is when you go entire days without seeing other people. Nature doesn't particularly care about weekends, so they come as just another day. I left home on a Friday, and here was one again, seven days later, as I walked into the outskirts of Petalburg City. Arriving in a major city during rush hour is extremely problematic, and I recommend that you avoid it if at all possible. As it was, I had to navigate downtown Petalburg while surrounded by mobs of people who knew exactly where they were going and were in a hurry to get there.

It took over an hour to get to the Pokémon center. All things Pokémon were apparently kept together in the northwest corner of the city. I didn't see anything Pokémon related until I got over there, but I knew as soon as I entered. I crossed a street, and went promptly from no Pokémon anything anywhere, to Pokémon everywhere you looked. Everywhere there were Pokémon shops, selling things from Devon's latest poké ball to the newest blend of Pokémon food, made specifically for fire-types. The center was a small building crammed onto a corner bustling with Trainers. It made up for the lack of space by being 10 floors, and many Taillow and Swellow were perched on the roof.

I walked inside and left Mudkip with the Nurse Joy for a check-up, then went to my room. It was on the seventh floor, and gave a great view of the city. I had a view of office buildings sloping down towards the lake to the west. Like the room in Oldale, it was simply furnished. Bed, desk, TV with drawers on the stand.

I took a short nap before going back down to the lobby. I picked up Mudkip, then went to the PC to call Norman.

"Hey Brendan," he said. "Are you in town?"

"Yup," I said. "I can come over whenever you need me to. I just need directions."

"Come when you're ready. It's pretty easy to get here, just walk outside, turn left, and walk until you see the sign for the Gym. It's about a five minute walk from the Pokémon Center. I'll be waiting when you get there."

I left the Pokémon Center, turned left, and walked until I saw the sign for the gym. To be fair, the gym was one of the main places many people came to Petalburg to visit, so I supposed it makes sense for it to have been well advertised.

I entered the Gym and looked for Norman.

"Ah, Brendan, there you are," he said rushing downstairs. "We're up here. Come, come, meet the family."

I followed him upstairs to an apartment that was filed with boxes, with only a table and a small path cleared. There were two doorways branching off the main room, both probably leading to more boxes.

"May! Max! Come meet our guest!" Norman called. A girl about my age and a boy several years younger came out of the two rooms. The girl was wearing a red t-shirt and blue shorts that were a little uncomfortably form-fitting to me. The boy had a green shirt and cargo shorts, and thick rimmed blue glasses.

"These are my kids, Max and May," Norman said. May caught my eye and looked away bashfully, while Max just scowled. He looks like he's five. Five years olds do not and should not scowl.

"Right," Norman said, "This is Brendan. He's going to be helping us with the move. Mostly he'll be downstairs with me, getting the Gym ready for challengers. You and your mother are going to still be putting this place together. We want to get it done in a couple of days so Brendan can get back to Littleroot." He looked over at the clock. "But first," he said, "May, why don't you and Brendan go and get us something to eat?"

"Sure thing," May said. "Come on, Brendan. We'll be back in a bit!"

May grabbed my arm and dragged me out into the streets. Night was starting to fall, and the center of Petalburg was coming to life. Billboards were flashing in thirty different colors, people were running by yelling to each other, and street musicians practiced their craft on the sidewalks. I stepped forward and turned around, taking it all in.

"Oh, yeah," my said butting me with her shoulder. "You're a country kid, aren't you? Never been in a place like this. It takes some time, but you get used to it. This place is kinda small, really."

"Small?" I asked, incredulous. "This place is huge! Where'd you come from that makes this place seem small?"

"Goldenrod City," she said. "There's maybe four of five million people there. If you think this is big, I'd hate to see what you'd call small."

"How's 50 people sound?" I said, smiling. "Alright, now you're the expert, find us some food in this maze."

"Sure, let's go this way," she said, taking off down the street.

"What's down there?" I asked, chasing after her.

"No idea!"

Great. Just great.

* * *

Hey, everyone, sorry for the long wait. I've been crazy busy over here, but I'm back. I'm also almost done with Chapter 6 (no, really, I have more than 2,000 words already).


	6. That was a Short Journey

I was only about an hour's walk from Jubilife when I ran into them. A pack of Shinx, none too pleased to see me. Shinx seem to be a theme this week. I'd seen a couple others in the trees off the route, and I felt like they might have been taking an interest in me as I walked along route 202. Shinx are known to be fairly territorial, so I didn't take too much notice. Of course, walking into a mess of about 20 of the things will cause anyone to get a little nervous, especially if they turn to glare at you.

Jubilife's skyline was standing out against the horizon, and some of the suburbs were starting to come into view. A short rain the night before had cleared the air, meaning that the morning was cooler than the ones before it. Turtwig was walking beside me, something that I'd had him do when the weather was nice. It helped him burn off some extra energy, and kept some of the loneliness at bay. Even though many small towns and farms dotted the landscape of southern Sinnoh, I didn't spend much time with people around. Turtwig was the closest thing I had to company.

I was walking around a curve in the road when I was greeted by the sight of more than a dozen Shinx staring each other down. They were in two lines, tails bristling and sparks flying from their fur. The Shinx were standing in the middle of the road, making it impossible to go around them. One of the pair closest to me looked up and started growling fiercely. She stepped away from her opposite and sent more sparks into the air around her.

Her opposite saw this as a chance to attack, and rushed forward to bite her flank. She turned back furiously and lunged at her attacker. The other pairs saw this as their cue, and charged at each other, viciously howling and sending the whole mess of Shinx into combat. They tackled and bit and sent sparks at each other. When one would fall, its opponent would rush off somewhere else to join one of its allies in its fight, or to move one of the injured off to the side.

I was rooted to the spot, transfixed by the fighting in front of me. Turtwig had a bit more sense, and kept trying to push me away from the group of angry Pokémon. He wasn't fast enough, though, and the last Shinx on one side fled off into the trees before I moved. The three remaining on the winning side then turned to face me, fur bristling and sparks flying. They didn't seem to like me being where I was, and looked ready to fight something else.

"S-Shinx." I heard softly from the ground. A Shinx, scratched and bloody, with fur sticking out in every direction, had moved in front of me. It looked at the three standing, and struggled to stand. They glared at it, and started to move closer.

"Twig!" Turtwig said as it moved around to stand by the Shinx, who flashed him a grateful glance. The advancing Shinx stopped and looked warily at Turtwig, before barking something at the Shinx in front of me and turning around.

The Shinx sighed, then collapsed onto the ground. I picked it up, then started running toward Jubilife City. Turtwig followed me, and we ran as hard as we could until we reached the city proper. The Pokémon Center was almost in the center of town, surrounded by shops and office buildings. I didn't much notice of them, or the people who yelled as Turtwig and I rushed past them.

I threw open the glass doors of the center and ran up to the counter. The Nurse Joy looked at me strangely before noticing the Shinx in my arms.

"Chansey!" she yelled. "We've got a badly hurt small electric-type." Two Chansey emerged quickly from the emergency bay of the center with a small stretcher. One of the took the Shinx from me and loaded it onto the stretcher.

"I've got to go take care of this, but you'd better not go anywhere!" the nurse said furiously. "If you aren't in this lobby when I get back, I'll make sure your Trainer's license gets revoked."

Stunned, I walked over to a chair and slumped down into it. Turtwig climbed up onto my lap and fell asleep. I scratched his shell absent-mindedly, and waited for news of the Shinx. I wondered what I was going to do with it. It wasn't like I could just take it back to where I found it, because I didn't know if it was on the winning or the losing side of that scuffle. Also, it had chosen to protect me, so it had probably really irritated the victors anyway, so it probably wouldn't be safe if I took it back. The only other options, then, was to let it travel with me or to let the Nurse Joy find it a home. That seemed a little too much like abandonment to me, so I decided that, if she wanted to, I'd let her come with me and Turtwig. I also decided that I should by more Poké balls, just in case there was another Pokémon that I wanted to capture or wanted to come along.

"What on earth were you thinking?" I looked up to see the Nurse Joy yelling at me. "You let that Shinx battle for far too long, and now it's in critical condition! There is a time when you need to stop training, and that's before your Pokémon is seriously injured, not after!"

"That's not my Shinx," I said. "It's a wild one. It was in a fight for territory or something with another pack and lost. The others were about to turn on me, but it stopped them. I don't even have two Poké balls."

The Nurse Joy looked surprised for a minute, then asked, "What are you going to do with her, then?"

"Is that my decision?" I asked. "I'll see her when she's doing better and see if she wants to come with me, but beyond that, I don't think I have any choice to make. She's a living being."

"She's doing alright now, if you want to go and see her."

I nodded, and the Nurse Joy led me back to the resting room. The Shinx was there, sitting on a cushion. She perked up when she saw us come in.

"Hey, Shinx," I said. "You gave me a scare back there. Are you doing alright?"

"Shinx!" She said, turning around to show that she was fine. "Shinx!"

"That's good." I stood there quietly for a moment. "So, Shinx," I started, "Well, I'm really grateful for what you did back there, and I'd really like it if you traveled with me. I don't know what happened earlier, but I don't think you really have another place to go back to. What do you say?"

Shinx ran up to me and started nuzzling my leg. "Shinx!"

I turned to the Nurse Joy. "Well, I guess that's settled. I'll leave Shinx here for a little while so you can keep an eye on her, and then I'll take her with me in a day or two."

"That'll be fine," she said. "Will you be staying here while you're in Jubilife?"

"Yes," I said, "Speaking of that, I need a room."

She gave me one, and I went upstairs to rest. Jubilife's Pokémon center was huge, and when I got off on the 8th floor, the elevator was still half full of Trainers. I went to my room and looked out at the city. People streamed along the sidewalks in all directions, and traffic swarmed the streets. I had been to Jubilife a couple of times before with Professor Rowan, but never by myself. It was almost a week's walk away, or four and a half hours by car, so it made sense that I hadn't gone along too often. Having a kid with you on that trip probably wouldn't be very enjoyable.

I grabbed something to eat, and then went out to a Poké ball shop. I picked up a few standard poké balls, one for Shinx, and two others in case I decided to catch any more Pokémon. The lab was more than happy to fund my purchase, I decided. I then went back to the center for dinner.

Meals at Pokémon Centers are elaborate affairs in the larger cities, although in small towns they are much simpler. This is because the largest Pokémon Centers may house upwards of a thousand Trainers per night, and all of them want to eat. This is made worse by fact that most are between the ages of 10 and 20. Each center has a cafeteria, which can hold seven or eight hundred people in the big cities, and fifty to one hundred in the smaller ones. The walls are lined with stands that hold whatever the fare of the night is. Because there are so many people with so many tastes, the chefs make several different options. Chefs are either human or Chansey, but sometimes another Pokémon, usually a Psychic, will help out with the cooking.

Dinner that night was crowded, as I chose the worst time to go and eat. Trainers shoved passed each other to try to get to the food, which was being constantly replenished. Many Trainers don't learn how to cook very well, although they can make some simple food for the road. Even though the food at Pokémon Centers isn't great, it's better than what most of them get when traveling.

Afterwards, I stayed in the lobby and talked with some Trainers from Eterna City who were traveling together. They weren't really all that interesting, but I thought it would be a good idea to spend some time with other Trainers while they were around. I spent about an hour with them before heading up to bed.

When I woke up in the morning, I went down to breakfast. I was later than most people, who stay at Centers for a night before starting with the sun in the morning. The center's cafeteria was lined with piles of eggs, bacon and sausages, and ham, as well as oatmeal, pancakes, and yogurt and fruit. I ate quickly, while thinking of my plan for the day. I wanted to go and explore the city. Jubilife was Sinnoh's largest city, with over three million people, and it also had a thriving district of Pokémon merchandise. I wanted to spend the day browsing and leave the next day.

I wasn't sure where I'd go. I thought about Oreburgh, because that's a common first stop for Trainers on the League Challenge. I wasn't sure if I would take it, but it would give me a chance to travel all around the region. I also thought about going to the famous library in Canalave City. It had the largest collection of books in the world, and I wanted to see some of them.

I was thinking about where I wanted to go when I left the cafeteria and went into the lobby. The center was bustling, but it was still far less busy than it had been earlier in the day. When I reached the door the Nurse Joy called out "Lucas Presnest! Telephone for Lucas Presnest!"

I turned around and went to the front desk. "Professor Rowan is on the telephone," the nurse said, handing it to me and going back to her work.

"Hello?" I asked, a little nervously. "What do you need, Professor?"

"Ah, Lucas. I'm glad to see I called before you left the city. I trust you are well?"

"Yes, Professor, I'm doing fine," I said, wondering why Professor Rowan would be calling. He didn't seem like the type to call to every city around the time I got there in order to check in: that just wasn't his style. "Is there something you needed?"

"Yes, actually," he said. "There was a conference announced in Lillycove City in Hoenn region. I'm leaving in a couple days, and I want you to come with me. This will give you a chance to meet some of the other researchers in the world, and learn from other region's professors. I have tickets for a ship leaving from Canaclave City tomorrow; if you want to come with me, I'll pick you up when I get to Jubilife in a few hours."

"Um, sure Professor," I said. "I'll go with you. How long will we be in Hoenn?"

"The conference will probably last about a week, but I don't know if I will want to stay there that long," he said. "It would also take about four days to get there and back, so I think we'd be gone almost two weeks in all. I should get going now, so we can catch the ship. I'll see you in a few hours, Lucas."

"I'll see you then, Professor," I said, then hung up. I still had some time before the professor arrived, so I decided to go shopping anyway. I left the Pokémon Center and went down a broad street into an open air market. Stalls lined the street and vendors called out their wares, calling out everything a Trainer might need for their journey. While the selection didn't rival the port cities of Sunnyshore or Canaclave, the market still boasted a wide variety of items, including berries, vitamins, and training bracelets. I was far too poor to buy any of it, but I wasn't about to use the lab's money on an impulse buy. That would be the fastest way to lose my funding, and I didn't have enough money to buy food without help. I felt free to browse with the knowledge that I would not be buying anything, which made the whole thing more enjoyable.

I browsed the market for a couple of hours before heading back to the Pokémon Center. Professor Rowan was still more than an hour away, so I decided to get some lunch. Turtwig and I ate salads while sitting behind the Pokémon Center, enjoying the sun. After a while, we went back into the Pokémon Center and sat in the lobby. I made small talk with most of the passing strangers. It's surprisingly easy to talk to people you're never going to see again, because their opinions don't matter at all.

The Center cleared out after noon, as the last Trainers leaving the city got on their way. I sat in the corner of the lobby, reading a newspaper. Nothing extremely interesting was happening in Jubilife, but the reading kept me busy while I waited.

"Lucas!" A sharp voice jolted me awake and nearly made me fall out of my chair. "Are we going to go or not?"

"Uh, yes, Professor Rowan!" I said, scrambling up from my seat. "Um, I have my bag, and Turtwig, so I should be ready. Oh! Wait, I have to get Shinx from the back."

"Shinx?" he asked. "When did you catch a Shinx?"

"The other day. She had lost a fight for territory and got pretty badly hurt. I took her here to heal her up, and she decided that she wanted to come with me." I run up to the front desk and asked the Nurse Joy if I could take Shinx today.

"Does the professor want to drag you off somewhere?" she asked.

"Yes, to Hoenn." I said, as she went to get Shinx from the back. A minute later, they returned, and Shinx ran up to me.

"You'll be in here for a while, Shinx." I said, holding out a Poké ball. She touched the button with her nose and disappeared into a glow of white light. Professor Rowan and I walked out of the Pokémon Center to his car parked outside.

"How was your trip up to Jubilife?" Professor Rowan asked after we had gotten out of the city.

"It was pretty good," I said. "Pretty uneventful, except for the run in with those Shinx. Mostly I just kept walking until dark."

"Well," the professor said, "At least you didn't get scared out of traveling. I've heard of Trainers before who nearly died their first couple nights out on the road and refused to go out again."

We drove in silence until we reached Canalave City. I amused myself by watching the Pokémon in the water as we crossed the bridge connecting the mainland to the peninsula containing Canalave. It used to be that any traveler would have to travel up from Lake Verity to reach the city by land, but a few years ago a bridge was built to facilitate travel to Jubilife. This has changed Canalave from a backwards, polluted small scale shipping and manufacturing hub to one of the most brilliant cities in Sinnoh, and also justified the presence of one of the League's Gyms in the city.

Professor Rowan drove us to the Pokémon Center, where we were going to stay the night before the shop left. Once we got our keys, I went off to the university. The library at Canaclave University had a reputation for being one of the best libraries in Sinnoh, and I wanted to see it while I was here. It was one of the reasons I was considering coming here even before the professor said he wanted to take me to Hoenn.

The library itself looked more like a cathedral than a storage place for books. Two spires rose from the center of the entryway, and stained glass windows stretched from floor to ceiling. The roof was twenty feet above the floor, yet the whole area was as bright as the day outside. I stopped to look at one of the windows. History and mythology have always interested me even more than the rest of the Pokémon studies, and I was enchanted by the depictions of the Legendary Pokémon stretched out before me.

One showed a mass of silver and blue with red fanning out behind it. The mass, Dialgia, looked powerfully down at me against a swirling backdrop of red clouds. A second window had a pale figure holding a sword, staring down from a grey sky. As the first window had shown Dialgia using its Roar of Time, this one depicted its counterpart, Palkia, using its Spatial Rend.

I tore myself away from the windows and walked into the library itself. The reception desk flanked the door on both sides, and a dozen or so librarians were assisting patrons at the stations. Beyond the entryway, hundreds of bookshelves reached up to the glass dome on the roof. People walked in between the shelves, some rolling ladders to reach high books, others holding small bags to carry everything they were going to need.

I immediately located the mythology section and spent the next several hours reading in the large chairs in the corner of the section. When I looked up after finishing my third book of the afternoon, I could see the sun dipping below the horizon out of the western windows. I ran back to the Pokémon Center, hoping that the professor wasn't too upset about me being gone for hours.

He was sitting in the lobby drinking a cup of coffee when I returned. When I went inside, he set the coffee down on the table and gestured for me to come over to him.

"What did you think of the famed Canalave City library?" he asked.

"It was amazing! There are so many books, and the building is really beautiful and the windows!" I had to stop myself before I started babbling.

"Those windows are one of the most famous art pieces in all of Sinnoh," he said. "People come from all over the world to see them. They help keep this city running, too, because of all the tourists who come to see them. Now, I don't believe you ate while at the library?"

My stomach took that as an opportunity to voice its agreement with the professor's guess.

"Go eat," he said. "I'll be in bed by the time you finish, so don't wait around for me." He didn't need to tell me twice.

* * *

Hi, everyone! This has been sitting on my desk since I finished it a couple weeks ago, and I figured I might as well upload it instead of waiting and doing a mass-upload as pennance for taking so long with this. I'm also sorry about the masss of html text you may have seen trying to view this right after I uploaded it. Weird things happen on here sometimes.

Baltimore


	7. Three Ships

The process of setting up the gym went fairly quickly. Norman had already unpacked almost everything in the living quarters upstairs, so I was primarily focused on setting on the gym area itself. Norman had asked for a simple design, made to look like an old dojo, so that meant we didn't have any bizarre challenges like attempting to flood three fourths of the gym to impress challengers.

I woke up on Saturday morning a week after I arrived to the smell of bacon frying in the kitchen. When I went out to investigate, I saw Caroline standing over the stove, with Norman sitting at the table, watching her anxiously.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" he said. "You haven't been feeling well all week, and now you want to stand around baking all day." Caroline had come down with some illness a couple of days before I came, and had been unable to help us set up the Gym because of it. She looked better than I had seen her before.

"I'm a woman, Norman, not a cloth doll. I'll be fine. If I think I need to, I'll take a break and have Max help me." There was a strength in her voice that made me think that she was going to win any argument that they had. Norman seemed to sense that as well, as he didn't press the matter any further. Caroline waited for a moment before saying, "Good. Now that that's settled." She turned back to her cooking. "Oh, hello, Brendan. How are you doing this morning?"

"Pretty good." I yawned. "Still a bit tired, though."

"Good food will take care of that. Sit down and eat: I'll bring you something in a minute." I complied and sat down next to Norman, who had gone back to reading a newspaper and drinking coffee.

"What do we have left to do?" I asked.

He paused for a minute before answering. "Well, we've still got a few things to hang up downstairs and some furniture to move, but I think we're just about done. I won't be taking any challengers until Monday, so you're welcome to stay until then."

May came out of her room bright and chipper, which bothered me at bit. I never was a fan of mornings; people always took them to mean that because you were awake, you were ready to get to work. That's not exactly the case with me. I need time to fully wake up. Time and coffee.

"Morning, Brendan!" she said, much too loud for this hour. She had been slightly uncomfortably friendly with me since I'd been in Petalburg. Norman had told me that May tended to be a very outgoing girl, and since I never was great with new people, I probably just needed some space that she wasn't giving me. She was a nice girl though, and I'd enjoyed helping her set up the gym. We'd spent the mornings working and talking about Goldenrod City and Littleroot. I never understood why someone would miss a city where there was no real night and there were always things going on and people running about. She talked about the place with such fondness that it seemed as though she would have stayed if she had the choice. I was glad she didn't.

The afternoons were mostly occupied by playing games with Max and making sure Caroline was getting enough rest. Max couldn't handle as much work as May or I could, but he gladly spent his mornings finishing off the last unpacking in the upstairs section of the gym. He would get tired after a while, which is when May and I would take a break and keep him entertained for a few hours. In the evenings, Norman let May explore the city and find places to eat and things to do. I usually went with her on these expeditions, but I had a feeling that she didn't really care whether I went or not. It was on these journeys when she was the happiest, and they were the times when I was most comfortable around her. We'd found a couple of good take out places, an excellent pizzeria, and several good seafood cafes and restaurants by the harbor. "Finding" them mostly consisted of standing outside smelling the food until we started attracting strange glances or until the owners decided that we'd been loitering long enough and chased us off.

It was on one of these trips that I'd asked her about Pokémon. We were down by the harbor, and I'd let Mudkip out of his Poké ball to run around for a while. She was watching him wistfully as he ran around on the pier.

"What's it like?" she asked, suddenly.

"Sorry?" I said, turning to look at her.

"Having a Pokémon. Being able to go where ever you want to go."

I laughed a little at that. "I've only been here, you know. I got Mudkip about a week before you met me, and I'll be going straight home after we finish."

"Well, my birthday is just a month away. Maybe we could convince our dads to let us travel together. It would be fun."

I turned back toward the water before answering. "Yeah. It would." I paused for a second. "What kind of Pokémon do you think you'll get?"

"I don't know, really," she admitted. "I haven't thought about it much besides being out on my own. I mean, we just moved to a new region and I feel like that's a good a time as any to figure out what I want and to explore myself. I mean, I'll be ten in a month, and that's supposed to be this big deal. But instead I'm probably going to be here for a while."

I picked up Mudkip, who had wandered back over to the bench where we were sitting, before I answered. "Well, there's a month between now and then. Maybe Norman will want you to travel, and maybe me going with you will help convince him it's a good idea."

"Maybe."

It was strange that I'd gotten to know May pretty well in just over a week, but I was happy that we liked each other. She had seemed happier since we said we'd travel together, and everyone had noticed it. Even Caroline, though she hadn't been up much, commented on how much brighter May seemed to be over the last few days.

That day's work consisted mostly of hanging picture frames on the walls where Trainers wishing to challenge Norman would have to battle Gym Trainers, who were being recruited in the afternoons. It was simple work, light and easy, and everyone stayed in good spirits while finishing up. That night, as we ate a wonderful soup that sapped all of the energy from Caroline, the phone began to ring.

"Hello?" Norman said as he picked up the phone. A very messy lab came into view on the screen, with my dad, who quite honestly looked as though he hadn't showered in a few days, on the other end.

"Norman! Hello, how are you?" he asked. "How's the moving in gone?"

"It's gone pretty well, I'd say. Can I help you with anything? Do you want to talk to Brendan?" Norman asked.

"Yes, that's why I called. I need him to be ready to leave in the morning."

"And come home?" I asked. "Is something wrong?"

"No, no, everything's fine. It's just, well, I um, forgot about this conference in Lilycove City that we're supposed to be at, and it starts in three days. So, Joshua is coming by to pick you up and then you'll catch a ship over to Lilycove."

"And the reason I'm going even though it's the three days away and you haven't told me anything about it before is?" I tried, only partially successfully, to hide my frustration. Dad's absentmindedness was an absolute curse ninety percent of the time, and here was an excellent example.

"It's a conference focusing on the next generation of Pokémon researchers. Some of the best young minds from around the world will be there, and it'll give you a chance to interact with some of the researchers that you'll be working with." Dad was completely oblivious to my tone. It was probably for the better.

"Ok. How long are we going to be in Lilycove?" I asked.

"Oh, probably about a week. But don't focus on that! Have a good time while you're there." He was a bit too enthusiastic about this for my taste. Before I could say anything else, the screen went black and silent.

Norman smiled weakly when I turned back around. "Well, James sure hasn't changed much, has he?" I shook my head and sat back down. Everyone resumed eating in silence.

The next morning, Joshua arrived in a station wagon that had clearly seen better days. The lab didn't own a station wagon, so I assumed that it was a rental. "Come on, Brendan! Ship leaves in an hour!" he called out of the window. I sighed and slung my bag over my shoulder as I waved to everyone.

"Ok," Joshua said, as he started driving down toward the harbor. "Rules. One: don't complain about this. The only person more ticked at your father than you right now is me. Two: for Arceus' sake, please at least try to have a good time. We'll both be even more unhappy when we get back if we hated the entire experience. Three: promise me that this is the last time we're going to let him pull something like this."

I started at Joshua blankly for a second. I'd seen him get a little bit frustrated before, but never this angry at Dad. This was new. When we arrived at the pier, Joshua left the station wagon at a rental facility and we went aboard the ship. The wind was strong on the deck, and I had to stop a couple of times to catch myself as Joshua led me down to our cabins.

"Alright," he said when we reached the cabins, "I need a little bit of time to cool off, so I'll be in here for a while. I trust you enough to be above decks on your own, so feel free to explore if you want. Just don't get yourself into too much trouble, ok?"

"Me? Get in to trouble?" I asked innocently. Joshua shook his head and walked into his cabin. I opened the door to mine just long enough to fling my bag into the room before turning around and walking back out into the morning sun just in time to see the crew start rushing around after we set sail. There were several guests standing by the port side of the ship, looking out at the city slowly pulling away from view, and I went and joined them. After a few minutes, the crowd began to this as people went to find other things to do. I wasn't exactly sure what those other things were; this wasn't a cruise ship, so there wasn't going to be any shuffleboard here. We'd reach Dewford Town late tonight and Slateport City tomorrow morning, and then Joshua and I would ride the ferry over to Lilycove, which I overheard a businessman describe as one of the least pleasant experiences that he's ever had.

I decided to let Mudkip get some air. He seemed to enjoy being out in the open, and decided to take up residence on my shoulder. We stared out as the land drifted further and further from view. After about an hour, I set Mudkip on the deck and we went down to our cabin. We alternated between sleeping and looking at the small islands that we passed most of the rest of the day.

Around seven, Joshua knocked on the door of my cabin. "Come on, Brendan. I'm hungry, so I'm going to get some food. You'll be paying for it yourself if you don't come with me." He laughed at the last bit. Joshua seemed to be in better spirits than this morning. I knew that he wouldn't make me pay for dinner myself, and even if he did, he would make sure that the lab compensated me.

We went to the small enclosed restaurant near the center of the ship. Calling it a restaurant is being generous, as the only things for sale were drinks and a few kinds of seafood soups. There were a few tables around the outside of the restaurant, so people could sit and look out at the scenery as they ate their food.

Joshua and I ordered our food and then sat down at one of the tables. The sun was setting off to the west, turning the sea a brilliant orange. Light bounced off the water, causing it to sparkle. It felt more like a dream than reality, as though we were about to be transported to a gap in the world.

"I'd forgotten that you've never been on a ship before." Joshua said. "It's a magical experience. Don't get me wrong, I love Littleroot, but I've always had a special place in my heart for the ocean. There's so much power, so much beauty, and so much life all in one place." He sighed. "It's been a while since I went home. Maybe I'll take some time off after we get back from Lilycove."

"Where is home?" I asked.

"Pacifidlog Town. A small town in the middle of the ocean built on a mix of Corsola colonies and tiny islands. We'll stop there for a few minutes on the Slateport ship. There's always one or two people needing to get to the mainland, or maybe Mossdeep."

I went to bed shortly after dinner. The sound of the waves hitting the side of the ship knocked me out almost as soon as I laid down on the mattress. I woke up the next morning to the angry screeching of several Wingull outside of my window. I blearily poked my head out to see them fighting over a piece of fish that one of them had probably nabbed from a larger predator. It was desperately trying to escape from the others long enough to eat its prize, but it wasn't able to avoid them long enough to swallow. As I watched the scene, it decided that the best place to avoid the others was inside the ship; or, at least, the general direction, as I was rudely almost rammed by the Wingull as it flew into my cabin.

I quickly shut the window so that none of the others could follow it inside, which didn't please them much. I then turned to look at the one that flew in, which was sitting on the floor happily eating its breakfast. Mudkip was a few feet away, looking on with a mixture of awe and disgust. The Wingull took a final swallow before letting out a screech and flying around the room. After a couple of times circling, it settled down and came to rest on my head. I nearly gagged because the fish smell was so overwhelming.

"Mud! Mudkip!" Mudkip shouted up at the Wingull. I winced as it screeched again and began to knead my head into a nest, which it then fell asleep in. I sighed, then picked up Mudkip and walked over to Joshua's cabin. Before I could knock, the door opened and Joshua almost walked into me.

"Ah, Brendan, you're awake. Good. Now, we're supposed to dock in Slateport City in just under an hour, so make sure you're packed and on the deck fairly soon. We'll have only a few minutes for breakfast, so try and see if you can find a bakery or something close by where we can grab something quick." He said quickly.

"Ok, but I have a problem first." I said.

"What's that?" He asked, completely lost.

I pointed to the bird using my hair as a nest. "This."

"Oh! That. Um, well, what do you want to do with it?"

"Get it of my head," I deadpanned.

"Well, no, I meant afterwards," Joshua explained. "Do you want to capture it or let it go or fling it into the sea?"

The Wingull shifted, pulling on my hair form the root. I gritted my teeth and said, "Probably the last one."

"Well, I can't let you do that," Joshua said, smiling, "But I will help you get it out. The easiest way is probably to capture it, and then release it. Hold on." He ducked back inside his cabin and returned with a Poké ball. "Alright, just open the ball bear your head, and you'll catch it. I'd keep it in there for a little while before releasing it so it doesn't go right back to your head."

I opened the Poké ball and felt the weight leave my head as Wingull was transported into the Poké ball. "Thanks," I said.

"Sure," he said. "Be ready to leave in about half an hour."

An hour later we had changed ships and were standing on the deck watching the people run around on shore. The sun shone brightly and everything felt energized. The Wingull sitting in my bag was not the only mischievous one, I noted. Several others were fighting for bits of food or stealing them from travelers who were careless enough to give them an opening.

About an hour later, I stared out over the ocean holding Wingull's Poké ball in my left land. "Mud?" I heard from by my foot. I knelt down to look at Mudkip.

"I don't know what I'm going to do about the Wingull," I said. Mudkip shot a water gun over the railing to indicate his preference. I laughed, and said, "Well, it does seem to like me. I think we could all learn to get along." Mudkip gave me a skeptical look before shrugging and laying down on my foot.

I took a deep breath, then let Wingull out of its Poké ball. "Gull!" It screeched, as it came to rest on the rail.

"Hello, Wingull," I said, "How are you doing?" It screeched again, and then flew off.

"Well," I said, still holding the Poké ball. "That was, interesting."

"Brendan! There you are! Did you let that Wingull go?" Joshua asked, coming up behind me.

"Not exactly," I said. "I didn't release it, but it flew off."

"Well," he said, "The point is it isn't coming to roost on your head again. That's the most important thing. We'll dispose of the ball when we get to Lilycove so it doesn't take up space." He paused, then continued, "We'll be stopping in Pacifidlog around lunchtime, so what do you think about getting lunch in town instead of staying on here?"

"Sounds good to me," I said. Joshua went back to his cabin, and I stayed and looked out at the ocean. Several Tentacool had started traveling alongside the boat, lounging in the warm sun. After a few more minutes, I heard a familiar screech in the distance. A gust blew across the ship, leading Wingull back to the railing where it had perched earlier.

"You know," I told it, "I'm beginning to think of keeping you around." It screeched again and then flew onto my shoulder. Having a Wingull on my shoulder was only marginally better than having a Wingull on my head, so I stuck put it back in its Poké ball and went back to my cabin.

After lunch, Joshua and I were boarding the ship when he stopped suddenly. "What is it?" I asked, before he began shushing me and waving his hand.

"Listen!" he said.

I did, and all I heard were the waves and Wingull along the shore. And, there was something else in the distance. A voice, a woman's voice. She was probably fairly old, but I couldn't hear anything else. I looked at Joshua, confused.

"It's nothing," he said, shaking his head. "Let's get back aboard before we miss the ship entirely." Unlike before, he didn't go below decks immediately when we got on the ship, so I decided to stick around and see what he was focused on. I figured it had to have something to do with the woman's voice from earlier, because that was all I heard when he asked me to listen.

Nobody else got on the ship for a few minutes, and Joshua was turning to go below when both of us perked up suddenly. The same voice from before was coming up the gangplank.

"So I clearly wasn't about to just sit around at home once I heard that my son wasn't going to be around for my birthday, Janice. That's why I asked you to-" The voice stopped suddenly, as the woman whom it belonged to arrived on deck. She was a woman about my height, who looked to be about seventy, but who still walked under her own power. She had a full head of silver hair, and eyes the same color as the ocean.

"Joshua?" she asked, looking extremely surprised to see him. "I thought you weren't going to be able to make it! But I can't cancel on Janice, not when I've already bought the tickets."

"Mom?" he asked. "What are you doing?"

"Janice and I are going shopping at the Department Store in Lilycove." Joshua's mom said. "It's my birthday treat, since you said you weren't going to be around."

"I'm not. I have to be in Lilycove City." Joshua said.

"Which is why Janice and I are going on a shopping trip." His mom said, clearly tired of explaining something that made so much sense to her.

"Alright," he said, with a tone in his voice that suggested he was giving up as much as understanding. "Is there anything you'd like to do while we're all on the ship together?"

"Well, I suppose we could just enjoy the day. We won't be getting anywhere until tonight, so there's no reason not to lie around all day."

The three of them walked off somewhere, and I was left to myself again. I decided to go back to my cabin and occupy myself until dinner. When I got there, I realized that I had absolutely no idea what that meant, so I let Mudkip out of his Poké ball. He immediately jumped on the bed and fell asleep.

I stared at him for a minute. "What do you even do in there that makes you so tired?" I asked, barely refraining from shutting him back in his Poké ball out of sheer frustration. He opened one eye and gave me a look before settling back down. "Why do I even bother?" I asked myself as I turned around.

I saw a little book on Lilycove City on the table, and started to read it. It was mostly full of the usual tourist traps with advertising that was uncomfortably faked. Maybe the art museum would be a decent place to go if I had any free time, but I was mostly glad that I would be staying in the hotel the entire time. Everything else looked like a horrible waste of my time and limited money.

That night, I stood on the deck, listening to the cries of wild Wingull and the sound of waves hitting the ship. It was very peaceful, and Mudkip and Wingull both sat on the deck with me.

"You're looking out the wrong way," I heard from behind. I turned to see Janice a couple of feet behind me. "The view is over here," she said, walking back toward the other side of the ship. I followed her and saw a single speck of light on the horizon.

"What's that?" I asked.

"The Lilycove lighthouse. It means we'll be getting there in about an hour or so. If you stay, you'll start to see more and more of the city illuminated around it." We stood and watched. Slowly, the one speck of light split into two, then four, and then dozens pointing out into the sea. As we got closer, we could see neon lights against the yellow of the others. The world seemed to still as we passed under the sign ending this part of the trip.

"Lilycove City Welcomes You."

* * *

**You know, I'm pretty sure that this is my fastest turnaround on a chapter since the beginning. That's reasonably exciting. This is also the first chapter to break 4,000 words.**

**Now Brendan is in Lilycove, and Lucas is on his way there... no points for guessing how soon the meeting is! And the next chapter should put me over 20,000 words on the story. That'll be fun!**

**Thanks for reading,**

**Baltimore**


	8. Academia

Chapter Eight: Academia

Next Thursday morning, the Professor and I stepped off the ship in Lilycove harbor. A slight breeze blew in from the ocean, leaving a salty tang on the air. Everything seemed so vibrant and full of life. I stood on the dock for a moment to take it all in.

"Lucas!" Professor Rowan called from further down the dock. I turned to see him hailing a taxi that was pulling over. I picked up my bag and ran over to him as he placed his luggage in the back of the car and got in. I kept my bag with me as I went to the other side and got in next to him.

"Where are you gentlemen going today?" the driver asked us, turning around in her seat. Her white eyes and teeth stood out against her dark skin and the blue hat and shirt she wore. There was something that struck me as odd about her, even though I'd seen her for only a second. She looked somehow different than everyone in Sinnoh. I quickly noticed that I was starting to stare, and turned back toward the window.

"Ah, here we are," the Professor said, pulling something out of his briefcase. "We're going to the…Cove Lily."

"Here for the conference then?" she asked, as she pulled out onto the road leading away from the harbor. "Make sure you get some time to yourselves while you're here, there's some really nice places to visit this time of year. And make sure you go to the museum, too." She stopped talking to avoid being hit by a driver who cut her off, and we finished the trip in silence. Professor Rowan gave her the fare and tip, and then we went into the hotel.

The lobby was full of people talking while standing against the walls. Many of them were still wearing their lab coats, even though they were far away from any place where research was happening. It was almost as though they were more of a badge of honor than anything else. Several of them waved to Professor Rowan as we walked by on our way to the desk.

"Hello, and welcome to the beautiful Cove Lily!" the receptionist said, flashing an especially bright smile that seemed a little bit forced. "Here to check in?"

"Yes," the Professor said. "Room for Rowan."

"Rowan, ah! Here you are. One single?" he asked, slightly confused.

"Yes. The other one should have been checked in already, under Birch." The receptionist tapped away at his computer for a second.

"Ah, yes," he said, "They checked in late last night. I'll give you a key to the one room now, but you'll have to find the others before you get a second key for the other room."

"That won't be necessary," a voice said from behind. "I'm right here."

"Joshua, good to see you!" Professor Rowan said, turning around. "You look well. But where are my manners? This is my assistant, Lucas," he gestured toward me. Joshua extended his hand, and I shook it.

"It's good to meet you," he said. "Brendan should be around here somewhere; you two will have plenty of time to get to know each other, but introductions are nice." I got the distinct feeling that I was missing something.

"Um, s-sorry, what?" I asked blankly.

"Did you not tell him?" Joshua said, looking at Professor Rowan, who shrugged and shook his head.

"Well, I thought I did, but I'm guessing that it slipped my mind on the way down here if he doesn't know what you're talking about."

I was totally lost. What were they going on about it and why were they doing it here and somebody please help me figure out what's going on I don't understand. I felt a small clutching near my heart and my breathing getting louder and heavier.

"What," I stopped and tried to compose myself, "What are you talking about?" I almost cheered at the small victory of getting that sentence out.

"Brendan is Professor Birch's son," Professor Rowan explained. I looked at Joshua and cocked my head. He seemed a bit too young to have a kid, especially one old enough to bring to this conference. "Oh, that's not Professor Birch; Joshua's his aide. Professor Birch isn't here, because nobody can ever get anything done when he tries to tell us stuff. Anyway, to save money, you and Brendan are going to room together for the next few days. It should be fine: Brendan's only a couple months older than you."

Joshua added, "You're probably also going to keep an eye on each other while you're here. Professors Rowan and Birch want you to be able to interact with the other researches as your own person, not just the protégées of two pretty famous researchers."

I nodded blankly. So I was going to spend the next few days joined at the hip to someone who I didn't know, and I wasn't even told about it beforehand? This was going to be wonderful.

The receptionist coughed politely, to remind us that we were still standing in front of the desk. Fortunately, nobody had gotten into line behind us and had to wait for all of the explanations to finish before they could get a room. He handed me the key to my room, and we moved away from the middle of the room.

Professor Rowan and I went to our rooms to drop our stuff off. Joshua's room and Professor Rowan's were both right across the hall from mine, so that meant I wouldn't have to look to hard for them if I needed them. For breakfast maybe? I don't really know, but I felt a lot better knowing they were nearby.

I was standing at the elevator ready to go back downstairs when the doors opened and somebody walked right into me.

"Whoops, sorry about that," he said. "I wasn't paying attention. I've been downstairs listening to lectures all morning and came up here for a rest. I must have been thinking too much about them and not enough about where I was going."

I started at him blankly. He was wearing a very strange outfit that reminded me of a tracksuit, and a white hat of some kind over his black hair. The red and black of his clothes, black of his hair, green of his eyes, and white of his hat all combined to create a unique look, one that I couldn't say I'd seen before. I didn't really have any other words to describe it.

"Anyway," he said, apparently not noticing my confusion, "I'm Brendan. Who are you?"

_This_ was Brendan? "Uh, I'm Lucas," I said.

"Lucas? Oh, you're guy I'm supposed to spend the week with." I stood there without saying anything. He waited for just a second before asking, "Hey, are you a Trainer?"

"Yeah," I said, a little bit uncertainly.

"Well, since I'm too tired to go back downstairs, why don't we go back to the room and meet each other's Pokémon?" I nodded and followed him down the hallway.

The hotel room itself was fairly nice, with two beds sitting in the center of the room and a small nightstand between them. Brendan had claimed one of the beds by setting his bag on top of it. There was a TV across from the beds, on top of a small dresser. Behind Brendan's bed was a floor length window. I walked over to it to look outside. The view was nothing terribly impressive; the window looked out over the city, so all I could see were roads, cars, and stores. I was secretly hoping we'd end up at a beachfront hotel or something so I could look at the waves, but I guess there was no way a conference of Pokémon researchers would be able to afford that. Actually, I was amazed we were in a hotel this nice. I half expected a cheap motel when we got here.

"Well," Brendan said, flopping down on his bed, "Why don't we all introduce ourselves?" He sat up and pulled of Poké ball off of his belt. A Mudkip materialized on the bed next to him, and promptly laid down. "Hey, no, you don't get to do that," Brendan said, shaking the Mudkip's shoulder, "We've got people to meet here."

The Mudkip looked over at me as though it was debating whether it was worth it to spray me in the face before bounding over to the bed where I had taken a seat. "Mud!" it said, rubbing its head against my hand before turning back toward Brendan. He just sighed and looked over at me ruefully.

"That Mudkip is the laziest Pokémon in all Hoenn, unfortunately. It wants to sleep every time it's not in its Poké ball. What do you even do in there all day?" he asked Mudkip. It shrugged. "Anyway, you have Pokémon, right?"

"Oh, yeah" I said, letting out Turtwig. Turtwig stood up in between the beds and gave me a funny look. "That's Brendan," I told him. "We'll be spending most of the time we're here with him." Turtwig raised a forepaw in greeting, which Brendan's Mudkip returned.

"I also have a Shinx," I said, letting her out of her Poké ball.

I sat on the edge of my bed as Brendan disappeared under the blankets of his bed. He seemed like a nice kid, and I guessed there were worse people to spend a week with, but I still was nervous. He was different, and new, and I didn't like that much. I've never been great with new people, which is one of the reasons I worked in Professor Rowan's lab so much, instead of interacting with a lot of the other kids in Sandgem.

Turtwig stayed out of his Poke ball with me, and looked around the room. He seemed uninterested in most of it, and soon settled down to sleep. I admit, the timing was pretty bad. Brendan was clearly exhausted when I met him, and fell asleep as soon as his Pokémon were back in their Poke balls, so I didn't feel like it would be right to wake him up and get him to go downstairs with me. On the other hand, I didn't want to stay here with nothing to do for a couple hours while I waited for Brendan to wake up.

I looked around for the magazine Brendan has mentioned earlier. It was a very touristy magazine, complete with all of the attractions, museums, and restaurants you could visit in wonderful Lilycove City. I was extremely happy that I was going to none of them; everything was far more expensive than necessary, and if that was the best they could make the food look, I'd pass. Well, maybe that restaurant specializing in seafood pastas might not be so bad. And I never have been able to say no to cheesecake.

I spent about half an hour flipping through the magazine, finding a couple of spots that might be nice for a walk, but mostly places that would be overflowing with tourists. I was not a tourist, nor would I be leaving the hotel for, well, anything really. The food was provided, the researchers all here, and let's be honest, this was a giant nerd convention. Nobody was getting out much. I might be willing to go look around if there were to be any free time, though.

Once I finished reading, I turned on the tv to look for something interesting to watch. I settled instead for something hopelessly boring. I don't think I could have told anyone a single thing about the show five seconds after it ended, which I'm going to guess was a good thing. Daytime television is, apparently, horrid wherever you go.

Brendan woke up shortly after and saved me from the torture I had subjected myself to. As soon as he was awake, I dragged him out of the room and on to the elevator so we could go downstairs and I could maybe enjoy something here. He looked a little bewildered when I grabbed his wrist and led him into the main hall, but he also had a bit of a smile when we got there.

"You're never taking another nap again. Not unless I need one too, but you're not leaving me alone with daytime tv and bad magazines. There was absolutely nothing to do up there. What was I supposed to do? I couldn't really do anything without waking you up except watch tv. It's the middle of the afternoon. Do you know what's on in the middle of the afternoon? Of course not, or you wouldn't have made me watch it. That's not happening again."

"Yes, of course," he said, not even trying to hide his sarcasm, "Whatever you say."

"Yes, whatever I say." I said ending the rant with a bit of a smile. "What's something interesting down here?"

And then he grabbed my arm suddenly, and we went in an instant from me dragging him down here to him dragging me to everything that caught his eye. The main floor had everything you could possibly imagine, if it was related to Pokémon. Brendan flitted from place to place faster than I could object, and I only saw a glimpse of the maps of Lapras populations in southern Sinnoh or the newest hypothesis on the female Nidoran evolutions' inability to breed.

Soon, we ran into Professor Rowan at a booth where a presenter was discussing held items used for evolution. I understood why Professor Rowan was interested. Pokémon evolution was his specialty, after all. I tried to grab Brendan's arm and pull him in before he went off to another part of the floor. I figured Professor Rowan would be interested in seeing how we were doing once the presenter finished talking. Instead of grabbing Brendan's arm, I didn't reach far enough and grabbed his hand instead. It was far easier to pull him back when I had his hand, but as soon as I moved him closer, he jerked his hand away. At that time, the presenter finished talking, and the crowd began to disperse.

"Well, have you two learned anything interesting while you've been down here?" Professor Rowan.

"Oh, yeah!" Brendan said, "There's so much interesting stuff to see down here."

"If you'd let me see any of it." I said, nudging him a little bit.

"Don't go too fast." Professor Rowan advised. "There's only so much stuff to see here, and this is only the first day. Walk around and learn, but don't try to see everything today, or even the entire time you're here. You should try to understand everything you see, or it's not going to be any good. You should try to learn as much as see."

I nodded, but Brendan just stared at the Professor. I felt from the expression he had once I turned to look at him that he had been so absorbed in what the Professor was saying that it hadn't quite registered that he was finished talking. I'd found a human Slowpoke; all I needed to do to make sure was see if he liked fishing.

"Ok Professor Rowan!" he said, before turning and seeing something else that looked interesting from a distance. "Come look at this, Lucas!" Professor Rowan smiled as I was led off by Brendan towards yet another booth.

A couple hours later, when Brendan had to stop to look around for something new to drag me off too, Joshua came up to us.

"Hey, guys, Professor Rowan and I are about to go to a restaurant not that far from here. If you want to come with us, we're leaving in just a couple minutes. If you don't, well, then you'd be on your own for dinner, and the bill, too."

Brendan laughed. "As if we wouldn't pay for it with the lab's money anyway. I'll go. Lucas?"

Dinner was a simple affair. Professor Rowan took us to one of the many questionable, but cheap, seafood restaurants near the harbor. One of the downsides of going to the harbor was that the four of us had to squeeze into one taxi, which wasn't the most comfortable thing I've ever done. Still, Professor Rowan got lucky in his choice of restaurant, because the food was good, the dining area reasonably clean, and the staff friendly.

I vaguely remember talking to Brendan a little before collapsing back at the hotel, but I was so tired that sleep came quickly. I woke up the next morning on top of the blankets rather than underneath them, and still fully dressed. Brendan was still sleeping, so I quickly showered and got ready for the morning. Something about sleeping in my regular clothes bothers me. I feel strange when I wake up in jeans, even if it's just from a nap.

I figured that Professor Rowan and Joshua would want me to wait around for Brendan to wake up, so I did. Fortunately, I wasn't waiting for very long. We went down to breakfast only about half an hour after I woke up.

Joshua and Professor Rowan were waiting for us when we arrived, both with an empty plate in front of them and a full mug of coffee in hand.

"Good morning, boys" Professor Rowan said. "Breakfast is full continental. Pastries, fruit, yogurt, and coffee. Help yourselves." Brendan and I didn't have to be told twice, and focused far more on our plates than what the adults were saying. It didn't sound like anything important, and besides, if they really needed us to hear something, they would have made sure to get our attention before they said it.

The rest of the day went much like the day before, and so did the rest of the week. Brendan slowed his frantic pace after he finally realized that I wasn't able to actually look at the stuff I wanted to, and when he started to understand that there were only so many booths to look at. But all in all, the week passed fairly uneventfully. Until the day before we were supposed to head back to Sinnoh.

* * *

Alright, I'm back. In reality, I've had this about 75% finished for the last six weeks or so, but I just haven't had the time to polish it and get it ready until now. I also promised myself I'd get it finished by Friday, but that hasn't happened (I type this at three minutes to midnight). I've got more time later in the summer, so that's when I expect to finish the next chapter. As always, feedback is greatly appreciated.

Oh! Another thing. I followed the lead of my friend EchoEternal and made a tumblr. It's .com, or, the same as this account.

11:59! Woo!


	9. On the Road

Chapter Nine: On the Road

It was Sunday morning, the last morning of the conference, when Joshua came up to Lucas and me as we were taking a break from wandering around the convention. We were people-watching in the lobby and drinking water.

"Hey," he said as he approached our chairs.

"Hey, Joshua," I said, "What's going on?"

"Oh, nothing that big. Professor Rowan and I just need to talk to the two of you later today. Could we meet for lunch in about an hour?" Lucas and I had nowhere better to be, so we agreed to meet in the hotel's overpriced restaurant at noon. When we arrived, Joshua and Professor Rowan were waiting for us near the entrance.

"Thank you two for coming," Professor Rowan began. He seemed oddly formal, and Lucas and I exchanged a glance. Something was going on, that much was obvious.

"Joshua, James, er, Professor Birch, and I have been talking this week. You two have gotten on very well, especially for us not really telling you that you would be spending the wek together. Because of this, we think that it would be a good idea for the two of you to travel together." What. Lucas audibly stiffened. Clearly I wasn't the only person who was surprised at the idea.

"This will let the two of you have someone to get to know while you're running around Hoenn. Traveling just by yourself can get pretty lonely. You'll also get to know each other so you can do lab collaborations." Joshua said. Of course something here benefits the lab. Nearly everything does, after all.

"You said we'll be in Hoenn?" Lucas asked, a little shakily. I understood where he was coming from with that. Traveling around Hoenn wasn't that big of a deal for me because I knew the region a bit and wasn't too far from home. In fact, expect for a few areas in the northwest, all of Hoenn had a lot of things in common with home. Sinnoh was much colder, dryer, and had Mt. Coronet dominating the landscape, unlike Hoenn's vast jungles. It would be like travelling on an entirely different planet.

"Yes, and don't worry about packing. I know you don't really have the clothes for the climate here, being from Sinnoh, so I'm going to get you the same type of clothes that Brendan wears. It's perfect for being outdoors here in the tropics." Joshua paused for a moment, then continued, "Also, I think you two are going to come back with me to Petalburg and leave from there. It'll give you a chance to start traipsing through the wilderness instead of having to get through all of the tourists here in Lilycove. And, if you decide to do the Gym challenge, the Rustboro Gym is an excellent starting point, seeing how it's affiliated with the Trainer's School."

I liked the idea of going back to Petalburg. Maybe I'd be able to convince Norman to let May travel with us. Having two friends would be a lot better than the original plan of me going around by myself. All of us would be safer, and three people is still a small enough group that there wouldn't really be any danger of us disturbing something dangerous. Not unless we were incredibly careless, anyway. I didn't think any of us were that stupid, but I guess you never know.

Lucas glanced over at Professor Rowan before answering. "Alright," he said. "Sounds like it'll be more fun than traveling by myself."

The next day, after seeing Professor Rowan to his ship to Sinnoh, Joshua, Lucas, and I went to the airport west of Lilycove. My dad had called the night before to say that he needed Joshua back in Littleroot as soon as he could get back, so we had gotten tickets to a flight to the airport in Petalburg. It would get us home four days faster than the passenger ships we would have used otherwise. Our flight was supposed to leave around noon, so we were able to get to the airport long before boarding.

While we waited in the terminal, surrounded by an insane number of Lilycove tourism advertisements, Joshua asked what we were planning on doing.

"Back in Sinnoh I'd thought about doing the League Challenge," Lucas said, "I figured it would get me to travel the entire region and give me a path to travel on."

"I was planning on the same thing, honestly," I said. "Dad wanted me to get to know the region as much as I could. That would get me to most of the places around Hoenn."

"That'll be good for you. It always gives you a goal, even if you decide to stop part of the way through. I would also say that you shouldn't focus on making it to the tournament in Ever Grande City. It would be pretty good if you do, but if you decide around Lilycove that you're done with having a strict travel plan and are ready to come back to the lab, we won't stop you."

"You're confidence is overwhelming," I said with a bit of a smile.

"Hey," Joshua said with a shrug, "I'm not going to be responsible for you moping around Littleroot because you lost in the first round of the League tournament. Half of the people there do, after all. Besides, the town's too small for that. I'd have no choice but to see you every day."

Lucas laughed a little at that. I was glad he was getting used to us a bit more. Even though we'd gotten to know each other a little bit in Lilycove, I was worried being away from home would bother him. It wouldn't be much fun to have him around if he didn't like me much, especially if we were able to get May to come along as well.

The flight back was pretty uneventful. I'd thought it might be Lucas' first time flying, but apparently, like me, he's been in the air before a couple of times because of needing to get to and from places quickly. Dad never had much sense for time, so we always had to rush to the conferences he took me to when I was younger, and apparently Professor Rowan was so well respected that people practically begged him to come and speak at whatever event they were putting on. Even though he doesn't look it, Lucas said that the Professor was too nice to reject a lot of the requests, so they would often have to be on the other side of Sinnoh the day after they finished one event.

Petalburg City, I remembered as we stepped off of the airplane, does not get the luxury of breezes off the bay like Lilycove does, since the city itself is a few miles inland. This meant that the air felt like a wet blanket falling on top of us. Poor Lucas looked as though he was about to suffocate due to the heat. This was clearly hotter and more humid than anything he'd seen in Sinnoh.

We caught a cab back into the city proper because the airport was located on a plateau north of the city. Joshua had to go down to the docks to get the car from where he had parked it, but the cab first stopped at the Gym, where Lucas and I got out.

"Why'd you have the driver stop here?" he asked, clearly confused. "Are we going to start the Challenge right away?"

"Probably not," I said, "but I do know the Gym Leader here. He's a friend of my dad's. His daughter is about our age, and I was going to see if she wanted to come with us."

"Oh," he said. "Does she have her own Pokémon?" he asked.

"No," I said, wondering a little where he was going with this.

"Well, in Sinnoh, it usually takes a few days for the paperwork to go in, even if she did want to come with us. And then getting the Pokémon from the regional lab, or some other place if she wants something else, wouldn't that take a while?"

"That's true," I admitted. "I haven't really though. Maybe we could get it arranged so that she could pick up her starter in Rustboro City? That's the next major city we'd go to."

"Sure," he said. He nodded at the door. "Do we go in?"

In the week I'd been gone, the Gym had been fully set up, and, from the sounds of a battle coming from down the hall, had also become fully operational. Caroline was sitting at the front desk, and waved when she saw us.

"Hey, Brendan," she said. "How was Lilycove? And who's your friend?"

"This is Lucas," I said, "He's from Sinnoh." Lucas waved, right on cue. "We were coming by to see if May wanted to travel with us. We're about to start the League Challenge, and thought she might want to come along."

"Oh," she said, "Well, May actually left a couple days after you did to go to Littleroot Town. She decided that she wanted to get a Pokémon, and since James knows Norman, he was able to pull a couple of strings and get her paperwork filed. She called to say she found a group of people to travel with already. They seem nice."

"Alright, then," I said, trying to keep the disappointment out of my voice. "Are there any open times to challenge Norman?"

She laughed. "The optimism there is cute. But, as you probably guessed by the fact that we have someone at the front desk, there aren't spots open until next Tuesday. One of the problems of bringing in a new Gym Leader, I guess."

"Well, I had to try. Tell Norman I said hi, and we'll be back as soon as we can."

"Ok, I will. See you in a few weeks." Caroline said as we walked out of the door.

"So, on to Rustboro?" Lucas asked when we got outside.

"Yeah," I said, "West until we reach the coast, and then north through the Petalburg Woods. It's a nice place. It would actually probably be a good idea for us to duck by the Trainer's School while we're there, and get some pointers on battling. We've been around Pokémon a lot, but not quite like this before."

"Makes sense," he said, before turning and starting to walk off to the west.

It was still early afternoon when we left Petalburg, so Lucas and I were able to get a good bit of walking in before we stopped for the night. It was a good thing that we had already started traveling when we went to Lilycove, because both of us had supplies for being outdoors. We didn't talk much on that first night, both of us trying to get back into the rhythm of the road.

The next morning, we work up to a fog that had settled over the road. Lucas and I had camped on a hill just off of the path, which meant that the fog wasn't so thick that we couldn't see, like it would have been if we had camped down in the valley. The air was cool, and the general feeling was one of mid-October as compared to early August.

"How's this weather for you?" I asked Lucas as we finished taking down camp. "Any better than yesterday?"

"Yes," he said, as though he was worried that the heat would come back at any moment. "This is great. Can it stay like this all day?"

"Nah, but it might for a couple hours, if you're really lucky."

"I hope I am," he said, grabbing his bag and starting to walk down the path.

We reached the costal part of the route around noon. The fog had burned off a couple hours before, and now the sun shone in a clear sky down on the beach. Lucas insisted that we eat lunch as a picnic on the sand.

"People do it all the time in Sandgem Town," he said when I asked why he wanted to do it so badly. "It reminds me of home a bit. People always come down from the villages to the north to have a day at the beach. It's a lot of fun."

Eating outside isn't something I'm all that accustomed to, especially in the middle of the day. Sometimes we would eat outside for dinner in the spring or fall, but from late May to early September, Littleroot Town was usually melting for most of the day. I would rather not melt, if I can help it. However, this part of Hoenn was much cooler than Littleroot, and eating on the sand turned out to be a very pleasant experience.

"Ugh," Lucas said after we finished eating. "I don't want to keep walking. This is so nice." He flopped back into the sand. "I'd been so busy at the lab before I came here that I didn't get any time to just enjoy the summer. And Sinnoh winters are so bad that I tried to avoid going outside as much as possible once the snow started. But here, this is so nice."

"Yeah," I said. We sat and watched the water for a few minutes before I stood up. "Well, we should probably get going."

Lucas didn't move from where he was on the sand. "Do we have to?" he asked. "Can't we just stay here for a while?"

"We've been here for almost an hour," I said. "We need to keep going to Rustboro City."

"Rustboro City isn't going to go anywhere."

"We're not out here to enjoy ourselves," I reminded him. "We do have things we're supposed to be doing."

"Yeah, going around the region. Nothing about keeping a schedule."

I didn't think it was worth it to try and win this argument, so I thought for a second.

"We're ten, you know," Lucas said. "We're not kids anymore. We'll be expected to basically be totally independent in just a couple of years. We can decide to take a day off here and there.

He had a point there. Dad had told me that by the time I was thirteen, he expected to be able to treat me just like Joshua in the lab. And we had plenty of food, so it's not as though we desperately needed to make it to Rustboro City.

"Brendan?" Lucas said, snapping me out of my thoughts. "It's alright, we can go."

"Nah," I said, pulling my shirt over my head. Putting it down next to the bag, I smiled at Lucas. "Let's go for a swim."

* * *

He lives!

Sorry for the big delay with this; I've been incredibly busy since the end of last spring. It's sad to not have time for the thing you want to do, or even the things that you have to do but still enjoy. Anyway, here's where the story really starts, at least this section. There's going to be more later, naturally.

So, the plot bits. No May with the group because, well, sh's got her own mess. That doesn't mean that she won't still appear, just, not for a bit. Lucas and Brendan have decided to take a little break a day after they got started. I guess they can enjoy the beach for a day, but they need to get back on the road soon. Who knows though, that day off might prove to be very important in the long run...

In other news, my dear friend Echo Eternal (who you should totally read, by the way), is writing a one shot featuring Turtwig and Mudkip during their stay at the Cove Lily. I've been told that it should be ready by the end of the month, and I'll tell you where to find it once it makes a public appearence, since that probably won't be on .

Cheers,

Fox


	10. Into the Woods

Chapter Ten: Into the Woods

The area of beach Brendan and I were at was surprisingly empty for a place so nice. It didn't seem all that secluded, but we didn't see another person the entire time we were there. Maybe it had something to do with us going on Monday afternoon, when people don't tend to take a lot of vacations, but that never stopped the beaches south of Sandgem Town from being full of people. Then again, in Hoenn, beach season isn't limited as much as it is in Sinnoh.

While Brendan and I were out in the water, Turtwig buried himself in the sand and slept in the sun. Mudkip wasn't as happy with the developments, and made himself a mud patch to spend the afternoon in away from the sun and heat. The warm water has a completely different experience than the water I was used to swimming in. Instead of having to move just to stay warm, I was able to just lounge in the water and float. Brendan saw me doing this and came over.

"Are you doing alright?" He asked.

"Yeah," I said. "It's just so nice out here. Totally different than swimming back home. Normally you have to move or you'd freeze to death. I can actually enjoy it."

"That's good. It's good that we're doing something that you're enjoying."

We stayed out in the water for about two hours before going back to shore. Turtwig was happy to get going again, and started running around my feet as soon as we got back on to the beach. Brendan and I grabbed our shirts and packs before setting off to the north towards the Petalburg woods. The sun was just getting low in the sky when we got the woods, so we stopped to talk about whether we wanted to enter in the morning.

"Well," Brendan said, putting his shirt, which he'd kept off after we left the beach, back on, "We're going to have to deal with bugs whenever we go in, so I say we just start. It's more than a day's journey through the woods, so we might as well go while there's still light."

"I guess if we're going to have to camp in there either way, we should just stop at the first clearing we find." I said. "But, if we wait out here, we'll be able to know we can find a good place tomorrow instead of hoping that we find a place we can camp instead of being stuck out in the middle of the forest."

I stopped for a second, before continuing, "I guess it depends on how much time we have before it gets too dark to keep walking. If we have less than an hour until then, we might as well take our time. We've got plenty of supplies, after all."

Brendan looked over at the sky. "I don't know how much time we've got," he said, squinting, "But I'd say that we probably have an hour."

"Alright, then," I said, "Let's go on, then."

As soon as we walked into the woods, the temperature dropped noticeably. A slight breeze was blowing, making the entire forest sway in unison. It felt very similar to the woods that surrounded Lake Verity back in Sinnoh. It was like a little part of home, except that it was surrounded by, well, the rest of Hoenn.

There was a well-tread path, though it was clearly less used than the road we had used to travel from Petalburg. I remembered reading that Rustboro was the largest city in Hoenn, so I was surprised by the lack of good ways to get there.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Brendan said after we had been walking for a bit.

"I was just thinking about how little traffic there has been," I said. "I mean, wouldn't people want to get from Petalburg to Rustboro?"

"Well," he said, "This is Monday afternoon, so there aren't as many people trying to get from one place to another. Also, the Pokemon League Tournament is starting in just over a week, so most Trainers are taking a break for a while."

"But what about cars? I haven't seen any of them around."

Brendan smiled, "Oh, you didn't know about this? They must use a different system in Sinnoh. Anyway, here in Hoenn, there are actually two different ways to get from one city to another using the main roads. One of them, the one we're on, was designed for Trainers, though anybody walking or cycling from town to town can use them. It also cuts out a lot of the small settlements with just a few dozen people. Well, you can get to them, but you have to use some side paths that most people don't really know about. Most people who find them are just really lost. Anyway, there's a second system of roads just for cars and trucks, for people who actually need to be somewhere in a hurry. We're probably about three hours walk west of the other road now."

"Oh," I said. "We have a totally different system in Sinnoh. There's only one road, and it goes to just about every small village. Some of them have grown up off the road, but we just add to it so they're connected. Trainers have a path about 20 minutes from the main road, so we can't hear the traffic, but it loops back to meet the main road just before going into the villages."

"Wouldn't that just mean a lot of extra walking?" Brendan asked.

"It doesn't add too much," I said. "It's not like people decided to build their houses all in a straight line, so the looping doesn't take too much time. And the cars have to go out of their way more than the people walking do, since we're so much slower. They can do in just under an hour what I can do in a day, so naturally they get all the detours."

"Hm," Brendan said, stifling a yawn. He laughed at that. "Well, I guess this is a sign that we should stop when we find a good place."

"What about over there?" I asked, pointing to a small clearing right off the main path. It looked almost as though it had been made for camping for the night, and it wouldn't have surprised me if the Hoenn Pokemon League had created it.

"Yeah, that looks like a good spot," Brendan said, dropping his pack near the center of the clearing. "Let's get camp set up, then we can eat."

The sun set faster than we'd thought it would, and by the time we'd finished making our freeze-dried dinner, the only light was the fire. Brendan and I sat close to it in order to keep away the bugs that we'd noticed starting to move around in the forest behind us. As we sat and watched the fire flicker, with Mudkip at the ready to put it out if it got out of hand, Brendan looked at me.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Nothing, really," he shrugged, "Just thinking," He paused for a minute, then said, "How's Hoenn been?"

"Pretty good," I said. "It's different from Sinnoh. Hotter. More humid. But I wouldn't say it's bad. Just, different."

"So you've liked it so far?"

"I mean, it's not like I hate it here. I haven't spent the last two days really wishing I was back home," I said. Well, that wasn't entirely true. I didn't want to be back in Sinnoh as much as in Sandgem Town. "But I've been away from home for a couple weeks. Sure this is far away, but it's not really any different than being in Sinnoh. I'm still gone. Besides, you're here. You're not bad to be around."

"Only not bad?" He said, pretending to look hurt, and we laughed.

"Can't let you think you're too much of a good thing," I said.

Brendan shook his head. He opened his mouth to say something, but a yawn came out instead of words.

"Go to bed," I told him. "I'll have Mudkip stay up with me while I make sure everything is ready for the morning."

"Night, Lucas," he said. "And, hey, I've liked traveling with you so far. I hope it hasn't been too bad for you."

"There's a lot worse I could be doing," I said. Brendan smiled, and then ducked into his tent.

The next morning, I woke up before the sun rose. Turtwig was asleep on the ground next to me, and I almost kicked him accidentally when I went outside. Some predawn light snuck through the gaps between the trees. The forest was quiet, certainly much quieter than it had been the night before. I stood for a moment without moving before I moved toward the trees where Brendan had hung our packs the night. Breakfast wasn't going to make itself, after all.

It wasn't long before the smell of cooking food brought Brendan and the Pokémon out of the tents. Brendan went over to the packs of food to grab something for Mudkip. His Pokémon followed him closely, and eagerly ate the food set in front of him.

"So, what's cooking?" Brendan said, coming over to the fire I had built to cook the food.

"Your favorite," I said dryly. "Dehydrated eggs and oatmeal, thrown into two separate pots and left to work themselves into something edible."

"Hey," he said, "It's not that bad. They've done a pretty good job making this stuff pretend to be real food."

"All I can say is there's a reason Pokèmon Centers have both low quality food and hordes of hungry Trainers coming through the doors on a daily basis."

"Yeah," Brendan said with a smile, "We're all poor teenagers and they're offering food for free. That'll get Trainers to go almost anywhere."

"True enough. Now go and get me a couple of bowls."

"Yes, dear," he sighed over dramatically. I whacked him with my stirring spoon, which really didn't help anything but Brendan's domesticity jokes.

We walked pretty quietly for most of the morning, focusing our energy to get out of the forest by nightfall. Brendan still believed that we could reach Rustboro City by dark, but I just wanted to be out of the trees. I kept walking for a moment before I realized that Brendan wasn't beside me anymore.

I turned back to see what he was doing. "Why-?" I began, before he began to wave his hand back and forth. He motioned me closer.

"Look over there," he whispered, pointing to a gap between the trees. A Pokémon of some kind, with large grassy leaves and a beard that appeared to be made of fruit, was happily nibbling away at berries off a tree. It was taller than Brendan and I, but still about the size of a very tall man rather than being some enormous creature.

"What is that?" I asked.

"It's a Tropius," he said. "I don't think you find them around here very often. See that fruit growing around its neck? It's really good. Come on, I'll see if we can get it to give us some."

"You think it'll just give it to you?" I asked.

"Yeah, they give them to kids all the time," he said, stepping off the path and walking towards the Tropius. The Pokèmon looked up as I followed him into the clearing where it stood.

"Hi, Tropius," Brendan said. "This is my friend Lucas. He's from Sinnoh, and hasn't seen a Tropius before. He also hasn't had a Tropius fruit before, and I saw your fruit looks ripe. Could we have one to share?"

The Tropius slowly walked over to us before dipping its head. Brendan reached out and gently picked one of the fruits off the Tropius' neck.

"Thank you," he said. The Tropius made a small noise and did not move. "Are you saying that we can take another one?" He asked, surprised. The Tropius made the same noise a second time, but still did not move. Brendan picked another fruit off the Tropius' neck and handed it to me.

The Tropius stood back up to its full height. It started to flap its wings, creating a strong breeze. A glint appeared in its eye, and it plucked my beret right off my head before it took off.

"Hey!" I said, chasing after it. I could have sworn it let out something like a laugh before it flew away.

"I wonder why it did that," Brendan said.

"I don't know, but I want my hat back. It feels weird to not have anything on my head."

"We can find you another hat once we get to Rustboro. They probably have even the same design as the one Tropius ran off with."

I was about to protest that I wanted my beret back when we heard a cry from further down the path. Brendan and I raced toward the sound. A man wearing a striped shirt and baggy blue pants stood over another man in a green suit, who had fallen on the path.

"Now, I'll just take that briefcase off your hands," the standing man said, prying a beat-up brown briefcase out of the hands of the fallen man. "Thank you very much for your cooperation," he said with a sneer.

The Poocheyna that was standing next to the man in the striped pants looked up at Brendan and I and let out a bark.

"Well, well, well," he said. "I guess we've got ourselves some kids who didn't need to be here." The Poocheyna growled happily. "Alright, you can go get them."

The Poocheyna came charging at us, though it wasn't exactly my definition of intimidating. Brendan and I let out Turtwig and Mudkip without saying anything, and the Poocheyna skidded to a stop in when they glared at it. Turtwig and Mudkip looked at each other before launching themselves at the Poocheyna, which promptly turned and ran back towards its Trainer.

"I think that's my cue to leave. Thank you for the package, once again. My boss will find this all quite useful." He then slipped off the path into the forest.

"Hey, kids," the man left on the ground said. "Thanks for that, even if you couldn't get the briefcase back." He stood up, relatively easily for someone who had just been robbed. "I'll have to tell my boss about this, which isn't going to go very well."

"What did he take from you?" Brendan asked.

"Preliminary research from the Devon Corporation. We're a firm in Rustboro that creates a lot of new technologies. That man, his boss, really, wants a prototype we're working on. And now they have it." He shook his head. "I'm going to get it when I get back to the office," he said. He turned and started to walk down a small footpath leading off the trail that I assumed went to the main road.

"Oh," he said, turning around. "Come and visit us sometime when you're in Rustboro. I'm sure Mr. Stone would be glad to spare a couple of minutes to thank you. Bye kids, and thanks again!"

"Should we say something about this?" I asked Brendan once the man had walked out of sight.

"I mean," he said, "I'm guessing that if Devon is involved then the police will hear about it sooner or later even if we don't say anything. I say we just let them take care of it."

I just shrugged and started walking down the path. Turtwig bounded around my feet, excited to get to stay out of his Pokéball for a while.

"Y'know," Brendan said later that day, as the sun pushed the shadows inland. "We haven't really let Wingull and Shinx out of their Pokéballs since Lillycove. I don't want to ruin these guys' fun, but it might be a good idea to let them out tomorrow in the city. It'll be good for them."

I thought about that for a moment. "Yeah, I think that is a good idea." I paused for a second before talking again. "If that guy came from Rustboro for the day, and it's what, noon? We can't be too far from the city, can we?"

"I think we're still a good few hours away," Brendan said. "Those two probably came by car and you could get out here from downtown in half an hour if traffic was good. It wouldn't surprise my if the guy from Devon was just taking an extended lunch break."

"Hm," I said. "So what I'm really asking is are we going to be there in time for dinner because real food sounds nice."

"Hey, the food you make's pretty good." Brendan said, nudging me with his shoulder.

"Thanks," I said, "But I like not cooking. And even though we've got pretty good stuff ourselves, we can't compete with a real kitchen."

"Speak for yourself," he said. "I like stuff that isn't made in portions of a hundred. We could probably make it without any real problem, but we should probably get other things to eat if we want to make aiming for dinner a regular habit."

"We can do that," I said. "It might be good to have some light things on hand anyway, just in case. We might even be able to get fresh food if we can find a good way to carry some."

"That's what we're doing tomorrow then," Brendan said.

I laughed. "There's no way that could take us more than a couple hours. Do we want to look around, or poke our heads in the Gym, or what?"

"I don't know. It would be nice to have a day where we don't really do anything." He said.

"Do you mean yesterday?"

"Yeah. That was nice. I'm absolutely ok with doing stuff like that more often."

"I don't see any harm in going and doing some sight-seeing or something. What?" I said, when Brendan gave me a look. "Don't tell me there's nothing to do there."

"I mean, it's not exactly a tourist hotspot," Brendan said, rubbing his elbow a bit. "The people there have to do something for entertainment, right?"

"For the love of- I'm not going to wander the city all day because you want to have a day off." I said, running my hand through my hair. "We need to actually have a plan or something."

"Fine, fine, I'll see if there's any ads for things at the Pokèmon Center. They're going to be complete tourist traps though, I'm warning you."

"Look, as long as there's something to do, I'm fine." I said. "We could even just find a place that we think will be good for lunch and go from there. But I'm not wandering around a city for no reason."

The trees were starting to thin out by now, and the city was coming into view. It was a small city on the south side, appearing to spring out of the ground a few miles out. When we got closer I realized that there was a hill south of the city that was obstructing my view, but here Rustboro seemed to not exist in its surroundings.

"What was that?" Brendan said, stopping and turning to look back over the forest.

"What was what?" I asked.

"I thought I heard something back in the forest." He said, scanning the treeline.

"Brendan," I snorted, "It's the forest. There's lots of things in the forest. I'd be more worried if you weren't hearing noises."

"Yeah," he said, not taking his eyes off the trees behind us. "Yeah, I guess you're right." No sooner had he turned around then I heard a faint yolp off in the distance. My first thought was that Brendan was right. My second thought was that this was very likely going to make us late for dinner.

"See?" Brendan said, eyes bright. "I told you I heard something!"

"So what is it?" I asked.

"I'm not sure," he said, pausing in between his words as though the conversation was barely capturing any of his attention. "Wait, I think I see something coming this way."

I turned back to look at the treetops, and saw a small figure outlined against the setting sun. Just as Brendan said, I could see it slowly getting larger. We stood, and watched as the figure's outline came into focus, and as soon as I recognized it:

"Hey! That's a Tropius! And it's wearing my beret!"

"Really?" Brendan said, squinting to get a better view of the Pokémon coming closer to us. "That looks like a Tropius alright, but why on you think it—oh," he stopped as the bump on the Tropius' head became more defined. The Tropius flew over the edge of the forest and slowed as it approached us. My hair was whipped around and across my face as it landed.

"What are you doing here?" I asked it, trying to add an edge to my voice. It didn't work. The Tropius looked at me, eyes shining as though it was laughing. It gracefully moved its neck so that its head rested just under my chin. My beret was right in front of my face. I reached out cautiously and picked it off of the Tropius' head.

As I was putting my beret back on, the Tropius moved its head back to look me in the eye. "I think it's apologizing?" Brendan said, as though he couldn't believe his own words. The Tropius let out a low rumble.

"Oh, well, it's fine," I said. "Don't worry about it." Tropius looked satisfied with my response, and stood up fully. Brendan and I waited for it to take off, but it stayed on the ground, watching me.

After standing there for a minute or two, Brendan opened his mouth then hesitated. After a moment he said, "Do you," then stopped, unsure of himself, "Do you want to come with us?"

The Tropius nodded its head vigorously and pawed at the ground with a foreleg. "Well," I said, "I guess if you want to you can come." I reached into my bag and pulled out a Poké ball. "Welcome aboard."

Brendan watched Tropius turn into a beam of red light and then turned back toward Rustboro. "Ready to get going?" he asked. I nodded, and we started walking as the sun started to sink beneath the waves.

* * *

**I hadn't planned on taking six months to get this out, but that should tell you just how busy I've been. No matter how long these take though, I still have plans for many chapters down the line, and I'm always trying to take a little bit of time out to write. Thanks for your paitence. I know I get antsy after a month without updates, so I can understand thinking this was dead.**

**Anyway, on to the story itself. They're certainly settled into this routine nicely, even though it's been just a few days together. Next chapter is socializing in Rustboro, a day off, and a trip to school. And maybe a bit of homework, too.**

**Thanks for reading!**

**Fox**


	11. Man Geht und Man Sieht

It took us longer than I had thought to reach Rustboro. By the time Lucas and I entered the Pokémon Center, the sun was below the hills west of the city and the streetlights were the main source of light. Lucas' Shix was out of her Poké ball, her fur casting a soft blue glow on the street in front of us. Even though she didn't add much light, something about having her with us made me feel better about walking through the streets at night.

The Pokémon Center, I realized when we approached, was illuminated the same color as the light Shinx was putting out. I made a mental note to ask Dad about it when I had the chance. The building itself was similar to the one in Petalburg, although it was on more land and was several floors taller. I pulled open the door and we walked inside.

The lobby was a spacious area, with lots of small groups of couches placed both around the edges of the room but also in the middle. Somebody had deliberately avoided placing them into rows while keeping the lobby from being impossible to navigate. The front desk was a straight line from the doorway, with a red carpet on the floor to make it even more obvious.

"Hello, boys," the Nurse Joy said as we approached the desk. "You're just late for dinner, but I can have one of the Chancey grab you some of the leftovers."

"That'd be great, thanks," I said.

"And I'm guessing you'll want a room?" She said, reaching for a key. "Room 723, a double. Anything else I can do for you?"

"Yeah," Lucas said, grabbing Tropius' Poké ball off his belt. "I captured a Tropius today. Can you run some basic tests to make sure it's healthy."

"Of course," she said, taking the Poké ball from him. "I'll be done in the morning."

I grabbed the key off the desk, and Lucas and I went up to our room. After I put my bags down, I turned and went back into the hallway. "The lobby was pretty full when we got here," I said. "I'm going to go down and try to talk to some people. You coming?"

Lucas shrugged and followed me out into the hall. When we got down to the lobby, I saw several groups of Trainers sitting around on the couches, talking or idleily watching something on the TVs that were on the walls. I scanned the room to look for a group for Lucas and I to attach ourselves to, when I saw a familiar looking red bandana against over the back of one of the couches.

"Hey, I think I found that girl from Petalburg I told you about," I said.

"Then why don't we go and say hi?" He asked, with a tone that had a teasing edge to it. "Hopefully she remembers you."

I rolled my eyes and started walking towards the group she was with, Lucas falling into step beside me. She was sitting with a guy a couple years older than us, who was wearing a blue hoodie with the sleeves rolled up to his elbow and a red hat. I was a little confused by the hoodie, which looked like it would be far too warm for the climate in Southern Hoenn, or really anywhere in Hoenn for that matter.

"So in the morning," he was saying, "We're going to go look around for a bit before heading for the Gym for our matches. Hopefully the leader won't have a whole lot of people trying to get one in." He paused for a second, looking questioningly at the girl. "What is it, May?"

Before she had a chance to answer, I walked up behind her. "Hey, May!" I said, "How've you been?"

"Oh, hey!" She said, turning around in surprise. "I didn't know you were back from Sinnoh. I wasn't sure how long you'd be gone, so when your dad offered me the chance to travel on my own I figured I'd take him up on it."

"Didn't you say you didn't really like Pokémon, though?" I asked.

"Well, not at first, and certainly not then. But I also really didn't want to be at home once everyone was settled in. Of course, the price ended up being-"

"Hey what are you doing here?" A shrill voice came from off to my right.

"My brother," May finished.

"Well, uh, since it looks like everyone's here, can we make introductions so I'm not completely lost?"Lucas said, moving out from his spot behind me.

The boy May had been talking to chuckled. "Well, it's not everyone, but it's close enough I guess." He stood up. "I'm Ash Ketchum, from Kanto, and I take it you're the kid Professor Birch mentioned?" He said, extending his hand.

"Yep. Brendan Birch. Nice to meet you." I said, taking it.

"And you are?" He said turning to Lucas.

"Lucas Presnett. I'm from Sinnoh." He said, a little shyly.

"Sinnoh? Up north?" Ash asked, looking a little confused. "What are you doing all the way down here?"

"I could ask the same for the Kanto boy," he said. "But Professor Rowan thought it would be good for me to travel with Brendan here in Hoenn."

"Hey! What about me?" May brother, (Max?) said from the floor.

"Brendan knows who you are!" May snapped down at him.

"Yeah, but not the other guy." He said back, scowling at his sister. What is it with that boy and scowling?

"Cool it you two," a new, lower voice said. "We're in public for Arceus' sake."

"Oh, hey Brock," Ash said, looking at the newcomer. He was taller, and clearly older, than the rest of us. His hair was oddly spiked, and he wore an orange and brown vest over his shirt. It seemed a little impractical, especially in the heat. "These are Brendan and Lucas," Ash said, gesturing at us in turn.

"I'm Brock, like he said. Used to be a Gym Leader in Kanto, until I met this idiot running around without a clue what he was doing."

"I really should be agreeing with that less." Ash said, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Nope. It's completely accurate." Brock said.

"So, anyway, what are the two of you doing here?" May asked.

"I'm, well, we're not exactly sure?" I said looking at Lucas, who just shrugged.

"I got ordered out of town by Professor Rowan," he said. "He thought traveling would be good for me, so here I am."

"And since my dad does mostly fieldwork, and wants me to help him with that, he decided that I needed to get out on my own for a bit first. Explore the region as myself instead of Professor Birch's kid."

"Are you going to go to the Gyms?" Ash asked.

"I think we'd both thought about it," I said after a moment. "It's gives us a goal for what to do while we're on the road, there's no real harm in stopping halfway if we need to go back to the labs, and it'll give our Pokémon experience in case they need to fend off wild Pokémon for whatever reason."

"I don't know the first thing about battling, though," Lucas said.

"I can teach you!" Ash said, looking like an excited kid. "I'm also teaching May, so I can just add you guys on."

Lucas shook his head. "You've already got a crowd, and besides, we're probably going to have to leave at some point. It's easier if we can just pop away for a week or two and not miss anything. But I'll still take you up on the offer if you're in town for a couple days."

"We're definitely going to be here tomorrow," Ash said, "So we could do some basic stuff then. And there is a Trainer's school here, right? You could spend a couple days with them to get a handle on things."

"Yeah, that's not a bad idea," I said. "But I don't want to keep you here if you have plans for the morning."

"Plans?" May said with a snort. "Ash doesn't make plans. Other than get to the Gym as soon as possible."

"She's not wrong," Ash said, scratching the back of his head. "I always seem to get caught up in something, but I'm usually just trying to get to the Gym and back on the road. But I'll be glad to help you out a little bit while I'm here."

We stayed and talked a while longer, Ash giving us some of the most basic advice he could about battling without ever seeing our Pokémon. He couldn't give us too much help, though, so Lucas and I went to bed after a little while.

The next morning, we went down to meet Ash behind the Pokémon Center. Lucas stopped by the front desk to pick up Tropius, then we went out into the grassy area in the back.

"Ok," Ash said. "The first thing to know about battling is how to work with your Pokémon's strengths. For example, your Mudkip and Turtwig are going to evolve into a Swampert and Torterra, if they want to. Both of those Pokémon are very good at taking damage, but not particularly good at dodging. While they're small, dodging is a possibility, but they're going to need to get better at taking hits as they battle more." He paused and thought for a moment. "Well, not taking hits so much as being able to make the opponent's attacks ineffective without having to run everywhere."

He went over to a large dirt field that was off to one side of the area. "So, that's what I'm going to teach you do to. My strategy usually consists of creating new combinations of moves, but we'll see what works for you. I've got an idea for Mudkip, if you'll get him out."

"So I was thinking," he said once Mudkip was out on the dirt. "All we have to do to block a lot of things is..."

That afternoon, after Ash and Co. had left to go around Rustboro, Lucas and I were getting a late lunch at the Pokémon Center. We'd decided to let Wingull and Shinx stay out for a bit since they'd spent most of the walk to Rustboro in their Poké balls.

"So," Lucas asked, "What do you think about doing the Gyms?"

"A lot better after today, honestly," I said. "I think we're not going to have an easy time of it for sure, but it's something to do besides just wandering around Hoenn. Unless you'd rather be a tourist for the next couple months?"

Lucas shook his head. "I'd rather have a purpose. I mean, I could have the purpose of being your bestest friend ever, but I want something beyond that."

"I didn't know you did sarcasm," I said. He just shrugged and kept eating. Wingull squawked from his perch on top of my head. "No, bad." I said, as Wingull tried to steal some of the food out of my hand. He squawked again.

"So what else don't I know about you yet?" I asked.

"I don't think there's a whole lot," he said. "I'm from Sandgem town, pretty small place. Nothing there but Professor Rowan's lab and some places for tourists in the summer. Lots of people come down from Jubilife City, and a few of them own houses down by the ocean that sit empty most of the year. I've got a sister, Rachel, she's four. My grandpa stays home and takes care of her while my dad and I are at the lab. That's about it really."

"Ok, but what about you?" I asked.

"Me?"

"Yeah, you." I said, reaching across the table to tap the back of his hand "Lucas Presnett, who are you?"

"I'm a pretty normal person, I think," he said. "There isn't much to tell."

"Yeah, that's not true. I know that you can make the packaged food we've got become something more than edible. I know you're generally pretty quiet and can handle being by yourself for a while. I want to hear more stuff like that, not some stall tactic."

His eyes narrowed. "Is there a reason I feel like I'm being interrogated?"

"No, but we can do it that way if you want."

"If it makes you happy."

"Fine then, favorite color."

He gestured to his shirt. "This shade of blue. Joshua chose well."

"What have you liked most about being on the road?"

"Hoenners asking me questions about myself." I gave him a look and he sighed. "Fine. Two Pokémon have decided they wanted to come with me. It feels nice to know that they have such a high opinion of you. Unless you've changed your mind?" He looked down at Shinx, who nuzzled against his elbow. "Well, she still likes me at least."

"I like you, if it makes you feel better," I said.

"A bit." He shrugged again.

"What do you miss most about Sinnoh?"

"Rachel."

"What kind of stuff did you do for Professor Rowan?"

"Pretty basic stuff. I did a lot of taking care of the Pokémon at the lab. I filed some paperwork, kept records for a lot of the researchers and help keep the place clean."

"Why'd you choose Turtwig as your starter?"

"I didn't. Professor Rowan said he had a bit more energy than the others and would be a good Pokémon to travel with for me."

"Why do you think he wanted you to have a starter with a lot of energy?"

"You already said. I'm a quiet person. He thought it would get me to be more outgoing if I had a more social Pokémon."

"I don't think **Professor** Rowan, known the world over for his calmness and endless patience, would consider being quiet a character defect."

"What do you mean by that?" He asked, frowning.

"I mean I think there's another reason you're

not telling me."

He gave me a small smile. "Well, then, Birch, it's up to you to find out what it is, isn't it?"

**I originally wanted to make this a lot longer than it turned out, but I couldn't write my way past this without feeling like I didn't give that break enough space. The good news is it means I got a chapter out in five weeks. The bad news is on my end, since I didn't get to put all the stuff in I wanted. Oh, well.**

**As always, comments are appreciated Feel free to P me or send things to my tumblr, which is the same username as this account. **

**Fox**


	12. Preparations

Chapter 12: Preparations

Brendan and I didn't talk much for the rest of the day. He clearly wasn't thrilled with me not answering his questions, and honestly I didn't care much. It wasn't that I didn't like him, but I wasn't in the mood to answer a bunch of personal questions for someone I'd only known for a few days. Traveling together would probably get us to a point eventually where it wouldn't matter, but we weren't there yet.

I decided to take Shinx out to the dirt patch out behind the Pokémon Center to see how her electricity was doing. Since Shinx generate electricity in their forelegs, they have a hard time projecting it into something like a Thundershock, which makes it harder to make sure they're producing a healthy amount. My dad taught me a trick to check a couple years back when we were working with some of the wild Shinx north of town. A healthy Shinx can comfortably produce enough electricity to conduct through a tree branch, but not enough to shock a person holding the other end of the branch. If you can't feel the current through the branch without the Shinx exerting a lot of energy, she's not producing enough, and if it's easy for her to shock you through the branch, she's producing too much.

Dad told me to use a branch about as wide as the Shinx's legs, so I looked around the base of the trees on the edge of the field for one about that size. After a couple minutes of looking, Shinx butted against my leg.

"Oh, hey, that's a great size," I said, scratching her under her chin as I took the stick from her. "Ok, so I just want you to make a little shock. You remember the fight that was going on when we met?" She nodded. "I'm looking for something like a warning. You know, a 'you have till the count of three before I jump at you.'"

I sat down and lifted her left forepaw. "You're going to have to keep this up yourself, ok? If I try to hold it it's going to throw off the test." I let go and put the stick to her toes. "Alright, whenever you're ready."

She tensed a little bit, and I felt a slight tingling in my fingers from the circuit completing. It didn't look like she was struggling to keep this level up, which meant I could mark off Shinx not being able to produce enough electricity.

"Alright, can you give me a little more? Remember," I said, before she tensed, "I only want you to put out as much electricity as your comfortable with."

Shinx nodded, and I felt the flow of current get a little bit stronger. "Alright, that's a good amount." I said. "You can stop now."

She stepped back from the stick, stretching out her leg as she did so. "There's just one other thing I want to do before we go back inside, ok?"

Shinx shrugged. "Alright, send out a good bit of electricity, then see if you can focus it." She tensed, and her legs began to glow slightly. "Now can you send it out?"

A visible wave of sparks spread out several feet in front of her. "Not what I was expecting," I said, patting her head. "But I think that's pretty good." She purred a little bit.

Brendan was waiting for me when I got back into the Pokémon Center. Mudkip was standing next to him. I walked past him and into the lobby, which was almost deserted. I sat down near the door and picked up Shinx. She laid down and yawned. I grabbed Turtwig's Poké ball off my belt and let him out as well. He rubbed his head against my arm before settling down next to Shinx.

Brendan came out into the lobby a few minutes later. Mudkip was still next to him, but Wingull had taken up his favorite position in Brendan's hair. I guess that crazy bird was good for something. It was strange to see him without his hat more and more, but I thought he looked better without it. When he wore it, it almost looked as though his hair was white instead of black. He would constantly look as though he'd seen a ghost, which isn't much of a look for someone as young as him. He sat down across from me and yawned.

"Anything you feel like doing while this place is dead?" he asked. I shook my head. He didn't say anything else, just sat restlessly. Mudkip had fallen asleep as soon as he got on the couch, which clearly didn't make Brendan too happy. I had been struck from the beginning at how different those two were. Brendan always needed to have something going on, even if it was just something to watch from a distance, and couldn't stand just sitting still. Mudkip, clearly, had no such problems. I wondered if that's why he'd been given a Mudkip as his Starter. Maybe Professor Birch thought Brendan would get something out of being around such an easy going Pokémon, and, maybe, just maybe, Mudkip would stop being so lazy. Maybe. Of course, with everything I'd heard about Professor Birch, that would have required more foresight than anything he could have possibly come up with.

"Hey," Brendan said, and I felt him shake me slightly. "I'm going to eat. Coming?"

"It's the middle of..." I started, but stopped as I felt how stiff I was and became more aware of the noise that came from around us. "What time is it?" 

"Around seven. Not all that late," he said, shifting to sit beside me.

"What did you do while I was asleep?" I asked, turning to face him.

He shrugged. "I think I slept for a bit myself. Took Mudkip out for a bit of work, and tried to think of what I could do with Wingull." I noticed that he'd gotten Wingull out of his hair, but hadn't put his cap back on. Maybe he was getting more used to not wearing it.

"Did you come up with anything?"

"I didn't get past stay in the air and try not to get hit. That and shoot from range," he said with a slight smile. "Guess I have to start somewhere." I smiled too, though I wasn't sure why.

"Uh, anyway," I said after a few seconds of just looking at each other, "Are we going to go eat?"

"Oh, yeah! Yeah," Brendan said, standing up. "Food sounds like a good plan. Yeah." I couldn't help but smile.

Later that night, we sat with May and the rest of her group, and heard about their day. They'd gotten into something pretty quickly, but the important thing was that Roxanne, the Gym Leader here, wasn't going to be available for a Gym battle until the day after tomorrow.

"She probably will have some other people signing up as soon as they hear she's up for battles, so you've probably got a few more days before you should get down there," Ash said. "I wouldn't put it off too long, though. It's easy to avoid something like your first Gym battle, and there's no point in that. Especially if you've got nothing to lose like you two." He paused a second. "Y'know, now that I think about it, you've probably trained more than I did the first time I battled Brock."

"And how well did that work out for you?" Brock asked.

"Terribly, as I'm sure you remember. But the point was that there's no pressure going into this. Your Pokémon will get used to battling pretty quickly, and Gym Leaders have teams for dealing with every kind of Trainer, no matter the experience. It's not going to be easy, but you're not going to get the team she'll use against someone going for their 8th badge."

"That's actually really comforting," Brendan said. "I don't know why, but I kept having this vision of her expecting me to beat a Salamence or something." 

"None of these Pokémon are going to be weak," Bock said. "That's too hard for a Gym Leader to control. The main way she's going to make it easier for you is by using tactics which will be easier to counter. Ideally, each battle should have a new trick for you to figure out. That's the main way we get better as Trainers. It would also be a good idea to keep in mind that Roxanne is a Rock-type Trainer. Doing a little research on the normal strengths and weaknesses of the type would be a good idea. For example, Rock-types tend to not be very fast, but they can take a lot of hits. Knowing what to expect from your opponent should make planning significantly easier."

"Thanks for the tips," I said.

"Not a problem," Brock said. "Good luck."

The next morning, I sat at one of the computers in the lobby looking for anything I could find about Roxanne. Brendan had gone out earlier to get more supplies for us. One thing we still needed to do was figure out exactly where we were going to go after we left Rustboro. Ideally, Norman would be ready for us in Petalburg City and from there we could take the ferry that would put us a couple days north of a place called Mauville City, which apparently had an Electric-type Gym. From there, we could catch another ferry that would let us get to Fortree City, then another ship in Lillycove to get to the island Gyms. That would leave the one Lavaridge Town to get. Or maybe we could find a ship that would stop in Deford Town and reach Mauville from the south after we battled Norman. It looked like a fair amount of backtracking either way. I made a mental note to ask Brendan about it when he came back.

On to Roxanne. She was a Rock-type Trainer, and was also a teacher at the Trainer's School. There wasn't much information about what Pokémon she used, I assumed because the Pokémon League didn't want that to get out too much, but I was able to find a list of Rock-types native to Hoenn. I doubted she'd use one of the Pokémon that they'd only been able to revive recently, at least not on Trainers going for their first badge. Nosepass looked like a good candidate, since they only live in Hoenn. Aron were more steel types, Marcego were primarily Fire-types, and using a Relicanth outside of a water Gym seemed like a bad idea. That left Geodude as a second Pokémon, and I guess Aron made sense if she was going to use a third.

I decided to look up what I could about Nosepass, since I already understood a bit about Geodude. Nosepass were naturally not very mobile, so much so that people thought for thousands of years that they were incapable of movement before recent observations discovered that they moved almost imperceptible amounts. They'd long been known for their strong magnetism, and were used as compasses before people began manufacturing them a couple centuries back.

"Magnetic Pokémon that doesn't move," I said to the screen. "So what, it pulls iron from it's surroundings for a shield?" Actually, yes, it turned out. A thought began to form in my head. "I think you're taken care of," I said.

"Having any luck?" I heard from over my shoulder. I turned to see Brendan standing behind me holding a couple of bags.

"I've got some ideas, yeah," I said. "Looks like the supply run went well."

"Well, it didn't go as smoothly as I would have hoped, but I think I got all the important stuff," he said, shrugging a little bit. "There's food, for us and the Pokémon, though it took me a while to find something for Tropius. Big flying trees need a special diet apparently."

"I thought Tropius would mostly just photosynthesize," I said. "What kind of food did you have to get?"

"It's actually just some stuff to supplement the regular photosynthesis," he said. "The lady I bought most of the Pokémon food from said that it might be needed if we go anywhere that doesn't get a whole lot of sun. She didn't have any though, so I had to run around a bit to find someone who did."

"Thanks for doing that," I said.

"Don't mention it. Besides, Wingull appreciated spending the day outside. Anyway, can you help me carry these upstairs?" He asked. "My arms are getting a little tired."

I logged off the computer and grabbed the bags from him. They were actually surprisingly heavy, and I hoped we'd be able to fit all of the stuff Brendan got into our bags.

"I can still take one you know," he said.

"I've got them, don't worry," I said, starting toward the elevators.

"Uh, thanks," he said. "So, how'd the research go? Any ideas for Roxanne?"

"I think I've got a couple. Do you know what you're going to do?"

"I think so," he said. "And if they don't work, well, we just try again. And in the meantime, we've got a few days to train without any tactics in mind."

Later that afternoon, I called the Gym to see when we could get a match scheduled. Apparently she hadn't gotten around to announcing the end of her leave to the public, so very few people had called to set up a time.

"We can't take any matches until Thursday afternoon, with the two we scheduled that morning and a meeting Roxanne has with the Pokémon League. You could come any time you like after that," The receptionist said.

"Can we take your last two slots before lunch on Saturday?" Brendan asked.

"Of course," the receptionist said. "We'll see you at 10 and 11 Saturday morning. Can I have names for the appointments?"

"Do you want to go first?" I asked.

"You can," Brendan said. "Lucas Presnett for the 10:00 and Brendan Birch for the 11."

"Excellent!" The receptionist said, typing something into her computer. We'll see you Saturday morning. Please try to arrive at least 15 minutes before your battle. Good-bye!" And she hung up.

"Alright, so we've got two more days to get ready." Brendan said, with a small laugh. "Five to one that one of us gets completely outclassed."

"You'll be fine," I said. "Besides, aren't we doing this mostly for fun? It's not like we have anything to lose."

"Yeah, I guess," he said, "But now that we're actually doing this I want to do well, y'know? Like it's one thing to just talk about doing it for no real reason, but once we get started I don't want to keep failing over and over."

"So we give Roxanne a couple tries, and if she's too much we go to the next place and try to learn more on the way. It's about getting better being out in the field and knowing our Pokémon. And anyway, most people don't do very well with the Gyms. Going around your region with Pokémon is a growing up thing."

"You're right," he said, starting to walk over to a couple chairs against the wall. "Doesn't mean I don't want to get good at this."

"I do, too, don't worry. And I'm plenty nervous about it, but, hey, it's not like anybody will remember us in five years unless we get really, really, good."

"I'll remember," he said, so quietly I could barely hear.

Thursday and Friday were a mess of Training. I thought I had the plan for Shinx mostly handled, but I needed to figure out how to use Turtwig in the battle. I figured that Tropius would be too big of a target for now, and any damage to its wings would be a bad sign for the battle. Brendan had been going off to train by himself, saying he wanted us to get through our first Gym ourselves before we started working together. I thought it was a bit silly, myself, but I didn't really see any point in arguing with him.

Brendan was waiting for me when I went in for lunch on Friday. He looked excited about something, constantly fidgeting and with a big grin on his face.

"What are you all worked up over?" I asked. "Did you find something when you were out this morning?"

"Yep!" He said. "I found this really nice spot west of the city when I was training with Wingull. We should go there later today after you finish with whatever training you want to do this afternoon."

"Actually, I think we're just about ready," I said. "We could go right after lunch if you like."

"Why don't we go up a little later?" He asked. "There were a couple things I realized I didn't get on my shopping run the other day."

"Ok," I said. "Just let me know when you're ready to head out."

_I should have known that it would be a mistake to do this, _I thought while we climbed up the hill on the western edge of the city. The slope was steep enough that every step felt like I was walking up stairs, at best. Fortunately the heat of the day had settled down a little bit. Brendan must have been right about deciding to wait a little while before heading up. The walk was still not exactly easy, and I hoped he didn't have someplace in mind that I wouldn't be able to enjoy once I got there.

'We're climbing up to the cliffs here," Brendan said. "There's a really good view of the ocean once we get to the other side."

"How far is it?" I asked.

"Probably about fifteen minutes," he said. "It's really not that bad."

"If you say so," I grumbled. He turned to look at me and I gave him a smile. Just because I was complaining didn't mean I wasn't interested to see what he'd found. Eventually, the slope began to level out, and Brendan ran ahead to see where we were.

"Yeah, it's right over here," he called down, before turning and taking off across the ridge. I ran to catch up to him and saw him stop under a tree planted near the top of the slope on the far side. When I got there, I looked out to the sea. The ground stopped only a few feet from where we stood. I walked over to the edge, and looked down at the jagged cliff face. Rocks stuck out at unnatural angles, both from the cliff itself and from the water below. Small bits of foam whirled around the rocks, looking from above like packing peanuts caught in the tide. I took a step back and looked out at the water.

"So _that's _why you didn't want me to come up earlier," I said, turning around. Brendan just stood there with an impossibly wide smile. I couldn't help but smile, too. Those damn things were infectious. I looked back out at the water, glowing a light orange color unlike anything I'd ever seen before.

"So, uh, sorry for making you mad a few days ago," he said, smile fading into a nervous frown.

"That's what this is about?" I asked, barely able to stop myself from bursting out laughing. "Brendan, I'd forgotten about that already. You're fine, and you definitely don't need to do something like this to apologize."

"I just..." He started.

"Nope," I said, "I don't care." I was still grinning like a fool. "This place is amazing, and I don't want you to think about anything sad after showing me this place."

"Thanks," he said, the smile returning to his face.

I stepped back to the sunset, trying to take in everything I could about the scene. I heard Brendan come up to stand next to me. We stood there for a few minutes, shoulder to shoulder, just watching the sun bleed into the waves.

* * *

**Sorry about the earlier formatting problem everyone. **

**Fox**


	13. Take a Breath

Chapter 13: Take a Breath

I got up early on Saturday morning, unable to sleep because of the upcoming battle. I went down to the lobby to see what if breakfast had been put out for the early risers. When I got down there, I was greeted by the sight of a few sleepy, grumpy-looking Trainers getting ready to head out. I grabbed some toast and made my way to the corner to eat.

"Hey, there you are," I heard softly. I picked my head up to look at Lucas, who looked like he'd rushed out of the room. He wasn't wearing his beret, the one day he clearly needed it, and his clothes looked as though he'd gotten one of his Pokémon to put them on for him. "I wondered where you'd gotten to."

"You look completely stressed out," I said, stifling a yawn.

"Ha!" He said. "You're one to talk: you look like hell. Do you have any idea what time it is?"

I shook my head. "People were awake. That's all I knew when I got up."

"It's 6 am," he said. "I woke up a few minutes ago and didn't see you, so I got a little worried. The nurse said she'd seen you come down when she started her shift." He shook his head, "What were you thinking?"

"I couldn't sleep," I said. "And I could tell it was morning, so I came down here."

"And fell asleep in your breakfast," Lucas said, rolling his eyes. "Speaking of, you have a little..." He gestured to his face. I grabbed my napkin and scrubbed as I felt my face flush. Lucas laughed, then yawned.

"It's too early for me," he said. "I'm going back to bed now that I know you're ok." He gave me a pointed look. "You should really come, too."

"Alright, I'm coming," I said, pushing away from the table. I got about half a step away before I stumbled against my chair.

Lucas laughed a little as he reached over to help me steady myself. "I'm not letting you get up first again, you got that?" He said, not entirely joking.

'Yeah, yeah, whatever you say." I said, trying not to lean into him too much.

"Smartest thing you've said all day," Lucas said, starting toward the elevators. He waited for me to get back into my bed, despite being only slightly more awake than I was, before going back to bed himself.

When I woke up again, Lucas was standing by the window, adjusting his beret. "Oh, good," he said when he saw me. "I was just about to wake you up. I need to get something to eat before we head out, but it's just about time to go to the Gym."

"What time is it?" I asked, sitting up.

"Just after nine. We shouldn't have any problems getting to the Gym on time."

I spent the entire walk over to the Gym doing anything I could think of to help stop myself from shaking. Breathing exercises, happy thoughts, you name it. I shoved my hands in my pockets so they weren't visibly shaking. Apparently that didn't fool Lucas though because he stopped just before we went into the Gym.

"Hey, Brendan," he said. "You're going to be absolutely fine."

"I know that," I said.

"Yeah, but sometimes it's nice to hear it." He was right about that, that's for sure. "We're going to go in there, and no matter what happens, we're going to be happy with how much preparation we put in to get here."

"Then we'll go prepare some more?" I asked.

"Hopefully we'll get to celebrate first," he said, eyes shining. "Someone showed me a great place the other day."

I rolled my eyes and pushed open the doors to the Gym. The entire lobby was rust-colored, but somehow managed to look clean and put together despite the odd paint choice. The lobby itself was fairly small, with a door on each wall, a desk in the middle of the room, and a couple of chairs creating a waiting area.

The receptionist Lucas and I talked to the other day was on duty at the desk, and she looked up when she heard the door shut behind us.

"Hello!" She said. "Come on in, and welcome to Rustboro Gym! I take it you two are the 10 and 11 battles?"

"Yes, that's right," I said.

"Wonderful," she said. "Roxanne isn't quite ready for you yet, so just have a seat in the chairs over there. Once the battles begin, you can also sit in the stands of the arena. I'll give you a shout in a few minutes."

Lucas and I sat down in the chairs, giving each other a glance. I hadn't noticed until now how nervous Lucas actually was about this because of the reassurance he'd been giving me since we scheduled the matches. Now that we were here, though, I could tell that he was holding himself together only a little bit better than I was.

"You'll be fine," I told him.

"We both will," he said, giving me a small smile. We sat there, both of us feeling a little better.

"Lucas?" The receptionist called. "Roxanne's ready for you." He stood up and started walking toward the desk. "Your friend can come, too," the receptionist said, "Just go through the door in the back. Keep going straight to get to the arena, but you'll have to take a turn to get to the audience area. It doesn't matter if it's a right or left. Good luck to both of you."

Lucas and I walked in silence through the back door, coming out into a long hallway. About halfway down the hall, there were branching paths off to the left and right. We stopped there.

"Hey," I said, turning so I was looking Lucas in the eye. "You'll be great in there." I reached out and put my hand on his shoulder. "Whatever happens, you've put in a lot of work for this, and all you have to do is show that."

He shifted uncomfortably. "I'm pretty sure this is supposed to be the other way around."

"Yeah, well, just because I've needed this all week doesn't mean I can't help you when you need it now. Go get yourself a badge."

He stepped back and turned toward the area. "Thanks," he said. "I'll do my best."

"That's all I'll ever ask," I said, starting down toward the stands. When I came out of the hallway, I was at the back end of rows and rows of seats. The other side of the arena was set up the same way, with fifteen or so rows of chairs stretching from one wall to the other. I wondered why the Gym had so many seats. I didn't think run of the mill Gym battles were exactly a spectator sport. I made my way toward the middle of the stands, choosing a seat a couple of rows from the front, directly behind a man sitting in a raised chair with a pair of flags in his lap. I assumed he was the referee. He heard me coming from behind and turned to give me a small smile in greeting.

Lucas had entered the main entrance to the arena and was making his way to the Trainer's box painted on the floor. He looked out at the arena and shook his head. I looked over to the other side, and saw that there was nobody there. Roxanne must have been caught up by something all of a sudden.

"Sorry I'm late," I heard echo from the entrance across from Lucas. "I had to finalize my plans for you." A young woman, maybe only about 16, came out of the tunnel. She was wearing a charcoal grey dress and red tights, both long like the clothes Lucas and I were wearing. They seemed to be that way more out of professionalism than protection from the sun, though. She also had a strange bow in her hair that made a know that was like a pretzel missing its bottom bit.

"I'm Roxanne," she said. "I'd like to take this moment to formally welcome you to the Rustboro Gym, and to Hoenn in general. Have you had a good time down here so far?"

"Uh, yeah," Lucas said. "How did you know I'm not from Hoenn?"

"The Pokémon League has records on all Trainers, and they get shared between regions," Roxanne explained. "It's a way to make sure everything is going smoothly and not against any regulations or laws. You have no idea how many smugglers and fugitives we've caught with the system. Anyway, I can imagine being this far from home would be pretty difficult. Are you here by yourself?"

Lucas looked up at me. "I'm traveling with him," he said, gesturing in my direction.

"Ah!" Roxanne said, turning to face me. "And who might you be?"

"The next victim," I called down. Roxanne giggled before composing herself again.

"Well, I'll get to talk to you in a little bit then," she said. She turned back to Lucas. "Lucas Presnett, you have challenged the Rustboro Gym in order to obtain the Stone Badge. I, Roxanne, Leader of the Gym, accept your challenge. This will be a two-on-two battle. You may switch Pokémon after defeating on of mine, but I may not switch after defeating one of yours. There is no time limit for this battle. Do you have any questions for me before we begin"

"Actually, yes," Lucas said. "Is there a way you're supposed to throw the ball? Like, it would be a problem if they just sit on the field."

I wasn't sure whether to crawl into a hole or concede that he had a point there.

Roxanne did a slight double take. "Um, I never actually thought about that," she said. "I think the balls come back to you once you throw them, but I've always been too focused on the battle." She looked up at the referee. "Jonathan, do you know anything about that?"

"You're asking the wrong guy," he said, shrugging. "I don't know how they work, I just make them."

"So I think whatever feels natural should work," she said, turning back to Lucas. "If not, well, it would be a first. I'd call that reason enough to restart the battle, though. With that out of the way, are you ready to start?"

"Yes," Lucas said taking a deep breath.

"Then," said the referee, "Begin!"

* * *

Well, how's this for rapid turnaround, eh? I've been very industrious over the past few days, as you can see. Even though this is one of the shortest chapters so far, I still felt like it was just as long as it needed to be. I have to say that I don't think I'll be able to get anything done this fast again, so sorry to get your hopes up.

Anyway, the story bit of these notes! It's time for a Gym Battle, no matter how much I try to avoid it. (Side note: I'm working on the battle now and decided to post this so I could take a break from that because it's so hard.) We get to see more of the guys interacting, and we get to see me try to turn this into more and more of a character as plot story. In a couple chapters, we're going to get to explore these new characters (Roxanne and Jonathan) in a bit more detail, so if you want an exploration of minor characters, this is the story for you. I'm really not doing a good job selling my own work, am I? Eh, it's 2 am here, so I say to hell with it.

Fox


	14. Starting off with a Bang

Chapter 14: Starting off with a Bang

"Begin!" The command rung in the air for a moment as Roxanne and I grabbed our first Poké balls. I momentarily wondered how awful it would be if I couldn't even throw out the ball right before just sidearming it at the ground a few feet in front of me. Turtwig materialized on the ground, across from an Aron. I held out my hand as the ball came spinning back toward me.

"Oh, good," Roxanne said, staring at the ball in her own hand. "They do come back. Jonathan, can you ask your boss about that when you go back to work next week?"

"Sure," he said.

"Wonderful," she said. "Now Aron, Dig!"

I noticed that the arena was built to handle Pokémon far larger than either Turtwig or her Aron. It was maybe about thirty feet long by twenty feet wide, which meant that both Pokémon would have a lot of ground to cover before they actually started to battle. That also meant that there was an advantage in being able to strike from range.

"Razor Leaf, Turtwig!" I called, and Turtwig began to launch barrage after barrage of leaves at the Aron. A few of them left noticeable scratches on Aron's steel hide, but it quickly escaped underground, and Turtwig had to stop the attack.

"Keep moving, Turtwig," I said. "Don't let it get directly underneath you." He nodded and began to slowly and randomly move around in a small area. It didn't work as well as I'd hoped though, and eventually the Aron popped out of the ground directly into Turtwig. He was able to react quickly enough to turn his shell to absorb most of the blow, but was still knocked back several feet.

"Hit it with Razor Leaf while it's exposed!" I said, trying to think of anything I could to counter the Dig.

"Sand Attack," Roxanne called. Aron responded by kicking up a cloud of dust around it, large enough that Turtwig couldn't see exactly where it was. Not a true Sand Attack, but it worked well enough.

"It's going to Dig again," I told Turtwig. "Be ready when it comes out."

The dust cloud faded after a few seconds to reveal that Aron had disappeared again. Turtwig tried a different tactic, and braced himself in anticipation of the impact. A few seconds later, Aron slammed into Turtwig from below.

"Bite it," I said. "Then Absorb!"

Turtwig turned to latch on to Aron's side. Aron squirmed and tried to worm its way out of Turtwig's grip.

"Harden, Aron!" Roxanne said. Aron stiffened, then slipped away as Turtwig was unable to keep a grip on the hardened hide. He sent a few more Razor Leaves as a parting shot. Aron was clearly coming off worse in the little skirmishes, which made me feel pretty good. Turtwig was doing pretty well so far.

"Different tactic, Aron!" Roxanne said, clearly noticing that Aron was in trouble when it was exposed. "Rock Tomb!"

Aron began to pick up rocks about its size and fling them at Turtwig. While it wasn't big enough to create rocks that would actually do a lot of damage, the rocks made moving a lot harder for Turtwig.

"Try to cut through the rocks," I suggested. Turtwig tried to launch a few Razor Leaves, but they didn't make for a very good shield. "Alright, try to just hit Aron," I said, changing plans. We had one thing that Roxanne didn't really have: range. I was a little unsure as to why she didn't have Aron stay close to try to take that advantage away from us, but I wasn't going to complain when being given a gift like this.

"Now," she said, "Sand Attack and Dig again." Aron again created a cloud of dust before disappearing under the dirt floor. I wondered why she was going right back to a tactic that didn't work very well before.

"Get ready, Turtwig," I said. He nodded and crouched, ready to take the impact of the Aron appearing underneath him.

"Metal Claw!" Roxanne yelled, as Aron appeared behind Turtwig and raked its claws across his shell. Turtwig yelped before turning around and trying to hit Aron with an Absorb, but it was already underground before he could get the attack off. It then shot out from the other direction, again raking its claws down Turtwig's shell before disappearing again.

The third time it tried that trick though, Turtwig was ready. He grabbed on to Aron before it could slip back underground and Bit. Aron struggled to get out of Turtwig's grip, but he was having none of it.

"Great job, Turtwig!" I said. "Absorb now!"

Aron kept struggling, and finally gave one final lunge away form Turtwig to escape, making a point to rake its back claws against Turtwig's mouth before it scampered away. Both Pokémon were clearly breathing heavily, though Turtwig looked to be in better shape than Aron.

"Turtwig-" I started, but stopped as he glared at Aron and spat. A single seed shot out of his mouth and flew at Aron, growing vines that wrapped around Roxanne's Pokémon. The small Rock-type struggled to break free of the vines, but was having no luck. After a few seconds, the struggling stopped as Aron gave up.

"Aron is unable to battle!" I heard Jonathan say from his chair. I looked over to see him pointing a flag in my direction. "Roxanne has one Pokémon remaining."

Roxanne was smiling as she brought Aron back into its Poké ball. "You did a good job, Aron," she said. She then looked across the arena and said, "You and Turtwig adjusted to Aron's different tactics well. You certainly understand your Pokémon, even if you haven't done much battling before. That is always good to see."

"You should know that Roxanne doesn't give out compliments lightly," Jonathan said. "She seems to think that there's a limited number available."

Roxanne humphed. "You haven't seen me with the kids," she told him. "Though I might put a bit too much distinction between Miss Roxanne and Roxanne the Gym Leader. Anyway," she said, reaching for another ball, "This isn't the time for that conversation. Would you like to switch before I send out my next Pokémon?"

I looked at Turtwig, who looked back and made no move to come back to me. "I think Turtwig wants to give your next one a shot," I said.

"Our Pokémon often are just as strong willed as we Trainers can be," Roxanne said. "Very well then. Nosepass, you're up."

I knew that I had a strategy for beating Nosepass, but the wrong Pokémon on the field. Hopefully Turtwig would be able to wear it down enough that Shinx would be able to use our plan to end this quickly.

"Razor Leaf, Turtwig," I said, hoping to get a feel for how Roxanne was going to handle this. Nosepass don't move much, so she'd clearly have to have ways to deal with ranged attacks as well as close combat.

"Magnet Rise," she said, and the Nosepass took off over the leaves. "Now, Magnet Bomb!" Small bits of metal began to come from the walls, gathering around Nosepass before launching at Turtwig.

"Withdraw!" I yelled, and Turtwig snuck into his shell just before the metal balls slammed into him. The impact caused him to roll over, but he righted himself and shook it off.

"Get the Razor Leaves as thick as you can," I said. Turtwig began firing off blasts as quickly as he could, trapping Nosepass in a swirling mass of leaves. It worked for about ten seconds before another Magnet Bomb slammed into Turtwig, causing him to fall over. He tried to stand up, but soon slumped over in defeat.

"Turtwig is unable to battle," Jonathan said as I readied Turtwig's Pokéball and brought him back. I looked at the ball sitting in my hand for a second. "Thanks, buddy," I said. "Time to finish this off."

Nosepass clearly had taken a beating in its time in the Razor Leaf ball, with pieces of rock chipped off of its body. It also lost its Magnet Rise and so was standing back on the ground. I thought it had been weakened enough that Shinx might be able to get this to end after one good run of the plan. I hoped so, because we weren't getting a second chance.

"Alright, Shinx, you know what to do," I said as I sidearmed her ball into the floor near Nosepass. She came out yowling, and Bit Nosepass right away.

"Magnet Bomb," Roxanne said.

I grinned. She fell for it.

"Get out of there, Shinx!" I yelled, and she jumped back and rolled away. The magnet bomb was on a direct path to Nosepass. That didn't seem to bother it any though, as it brought the metal to itself to form a defensive shield.

"Now, Shinx!" I said. She jumped onto Nosepass and placed her two front paws on either side of its head and sparked. I felt the sound that came almost as much as I heard it, and a bright flash covered the two Pokémon. Nosepass's makeshift armor flew off in all directions, forcing Roxanne and I to dive to the floor to avoid getting hit by flying debris. When I looked up, Shinx was sitting on the side of the arena, smugly cleaning her ear. Nosepass was face down on the floor nearby, down for the count.

"Nosepass is unable to battle," Jonathan said, sounding as though he wasn't entirely sure what had happened. "Lucas Presnett is the winner! Congratulations to the challenger!"

"Well done," Roxanne said, her voice shaking a little. "Do you mind if we do the badge presentation after the next battle. I need to take the time before then to get ready. Hopefully I'll be giving away a second Stone badge then, too."

"Yeah, that sounds fine," I said, recalling Shinx.

"Thank you. Now, I have another battle to prepare for," she said, starting to leave through the far door, noticeably unsteady.

"I think you just shocked her pretty good kid," Jonathan said, clearly pleased with the pun. Shinx gave him a look before walking back over to me. "I think you've got a shot to be pretty good at this, if this was your first time."

"Thanks," I said, letting Shinx get back in her ball. I turned and walked back out into the hallway leading to the lobby. I couldn't believe that my plan worked as well as it did, but I sure wasn't going to turn down a gift like that.

"THAT WAS AMAZING," I heard, just before getting slammed into with enough force that I staggered back against the wall. When I'd recovered enough to react, I looked down to see Brendan doing this weird mix of hugging me and pinning me against the wall.

"Thanks," I said, shifting so that I could actually return the hug. Brendan looked up from his place on my shoulder and smiled.

"You did great," he said. "Be more excited about it."  
"I'm still kind of in shock, honestly," I said. "I didn't actually think I'd win."

"Oh, so _that's_ how you were able to be so calm about this," he said. "A complete lack of confidence in your abilities."

"Hey," I said with a small laugh, "It's easy to not worry about losing when you don't expect to have a chance."

Brendan snorted before putting his head back in my shoulder. "You're actually pretty amazing, you know that?"

"You sure tell me that enough for me to," I said. I felt a tug in my stomach that I couldn't quite understand, like my body was telling me to just do something already, but I wasn't entirely sure what that something was. I settled for just standing with him for a few minutes, comfortably enjoying the fact that, hey, I just beat a Gym Leader. And also hey, this guy thinks I'm pretty amazing. I wasn't sure which made me happier.

Eventually I remembered that our day wasn't quite done yet. "Hey," I said, starting to pull away from the hug. Brendan made a noise to show that he didn't like that idea. "It's your turn now," I said.

"Ugh," he said, taking a step back. He looked at me and shook his head. "Let's hope I underestimated myself as much as you did."

"Well, if it means anything, you're not half bad yourself," I said, though any sarcasm was completely lost in the soft smile I gave him.

Brendan rolled his eyes and turned down the hallway back to the arena.

"Hey, Brendan," I called after him. He turned back, and I grabbed his hands. "You'll be fine," I told him.

"I know," he said. "And I actually believe it this time." I watched him walk out into the arena before turning down the other hall. That boy was pretty amazing. He'd do great, I knew that for sure.

* * *

**Well, here we have my first attempt at writing a Gym Battle. I hope I didn't mess it up too badly. **

**So, Lucas won, to his surprise and everyone else's. A little bit of research never hurt anybody, and we can see how it helped him win this. Brendan didn't do nearly as much looking into things, so we'll have to see how his battle goes, but that's for next time. And speaking of Brendan, he sure was pretty excited that Lucas won. Tackle-hugs are the best, let me tell you. I once almost knocked a guy off a stage giving him one of those.**

**You may have noticed that I've been updating pretty quickly recently. One of the reasons for this is that I'm trying to get better about my own writing habits while while I beta-read Xel-Yel's fic _The Nameless World_. It's a much darker take on Pokemon than you usually see, but as I said in my beta profile, I think dark works have amazing potential if they're done well, and this is done really well.**

Immer dein,

Fox


	15. Ich Auch

Chapter 15: Ich Auch

I went out to take my place on the edge of the arena. Watching Lucas win made me feel like I just might be able to do this too. Not that I was going to tell him that. Roxanne wasn't back out yet, so I stood and waited. Jonathan was sitting in his chair reading a newspaper, and he didn't look up when I entered or when Lucas appeared in the seats behind him.

Roxanne came out of the hallway opposite me after a couple minutes. "Sorry I'm a little late, again," she said. "I had to send an email really quickly. This is always a busy time of year." I wasn't sure what she meant by that, so I just shrugged. "I'm normally better at being on time, I swear," she said.

"It's fine," I said. "Don't worry about it."

"Anyway, I've got to do the same formalities I had to do earlier," she said with a small smile. "You, Brendan Birch, have challenged the Rustboro City Gym in order to receive the Stone Badge. This will be a two on two battle. As with the battle you watched, you may switch Pokémon after defeating one of mine. Are you ready to begin?"

"I am," I said, grabbing a Poké ball off my clip.

"Oh, one thing before we begin," Roxanne said, holding her own ball. "You just watched a battle, and that may have given you ideas. As Gym Leader, I have access to 24 Pokémon for Gym battles per Trainer Level, as well as my own team of six. That means you shouldn't expect our battle to be anything like the earlier one. Understand?"

"Yep," I said. "Is that all?"

"Yes," she said. "Jonathan, on your call."  
"Are both Trainers ready?" Jonathan asked, looking at us. We both nodded. "Then please send out your first Pokémon."

I flung my Poké ball in the air, and Wingull materialized above the center of the Gym. I looked down to see that Roxanne had sent out a Geodude, which looked up at Wingull grumpily.

"Rock throw, Geodude, you know what to do," Roxanne said. I wasn't that surprised that she had a plan for fighting Wingull. My team probably wasn't actually that unusual for Hoenn Trainers that battled her first. That meant that she'd probably seen everything I'd come up with, so I would have to be good at reacting.

Wingull darted upward with an offended squawk and I snapped back to what was happening. It didn't look like Geodude had been able to hit him, but Wingull was clearly not happy having things thrown at it. I sympathized.

"Supersonic, Wingull," I said. He let out a screech and began to circle Geodude, occasionally making strange noises. Geodude kept aiming rocks up at Wingull, but they started to occasionally be nowhere him. "Alright, now Water Pulse."

Wingull shot a couple rings of water down at Geodude before Geodude got its aim back and hit him dead on with a decent sized rock. Wingull immediately fell several feet before picking himself up and making a couple more circles around Geodude.

I looked down at the floor of the Gym. The dirt had taken several blasts of water, and was becoming muddier and muddier with every shot Wingull got off.

"Just a few more," I told him. Wingull screeched and sent a few more blasts of water down at Geodude. "Alright, now get away from there."

"Follow him, Geodude," Roxanne said, and Geodude curled up and started to roll in the same direction as Wingull. Until it got stuck in the mud.

"Keep firing, Wingull," I said. "It can't go anywhere."

Wingull prepared to fire again, but then stopped as Geodude disappeared from the field.

"You're right," Roxanne said. "Geodude couldn't go anywhere. I forfeit the use of that Pokémon for the remainder of our battle. Good trick with the supersonic: usually Trainers focus too much on the Type advantage they have and it's easy to knock their Wingull out of the sky." She pulled out another Poké ball and threw it into the arena. "This Nosepass should be more of a challenge. Thunder Wave."

The Nosepass appeared and sent a jolt of electricity around the Gym. Wingull screeched in pain before falling to the ground. He tried to get up and fly again, only to fall back down after a couple flaps of his wings.

"Rock Throw, Nosepass," Roxanne said. Several rocks began to rise from the floor before shooting at Wingull, who screeched every time one got near. Most of them missed due to his flailing around, but several hit their mark.

"Don't worry, Wingull, I've got you," I said, readying his Poké ball. Just like earlier, Wingull disappeared from the center of the barrage.

"Both challenger and Leader have forfeited one of their Pokémon," Jonathan said. "Whichever Pokémon is left standing will win the battle for their Trainer."

I nodded as I readied Mudkip's ball. "Get into the mud," I whispered to the ball, before throwing it as hard as I could. Mudkip appeared in the center of the muddy patch Wingull had created earlier.

"Thunder Wave," Roxanne said, and again I felt my hair stand on end as a current flowed through the Gym. I held my breath as I waited for the current to stop.

"Mud!" I breathed I sigh of relief as I saw Mudkip, completely filthy, dash toward Nosepass and fling mud it its eyes. I think I earned myself a Badge just for that one.

Nosepass tried to fire rocks at Mudkip, but had difficulty aiming both because of the how close Mudkip was and the fact that he was constantly flinging pawfuls of mud in the general direction of Nosepass' face.

"Earthquake!" I heard Roxanne shout just before I almost was knocked over by the ground violently shaking. It stopped after a second, but when I looked out at the field, the ground was still shaking. I made a mental note to ask Roxanne about that once we finished.

Mudkip didn't appreciate being thrown around by the move, and sent several Water Guns at Nosepass. They clearly did some damage, but they had the unfortunate effect of clearing a lot of the mud off Nosepass' face.

"Get back in there, Mudkip," I said. "The mud was working before, it'll work again." Mudkip threw several more pawfuls of mud at Nosepass before another Earthquake knocked him away. This time, instead of shooting a Water Gun from afar, Mudkip began collecting a large pile of mud Nosepass watched, preparing to counter whatever Mudkip tried.

That would have worked, except the Mud Bomb that Mudkip fired was strong enough to knock Nosepass into the ground. He blasted Nosepass with a couple Water Guns for good measure, and Nosepass stayed down.

"Nosepass is unable to battle," Jonathan said, after waiting a couple seconds. "The challenger has defeated the Rustboro Gym."

Roxanne sighed when she recalled Nosepass. "Well, at least they were good matches." She tucked the Poké ball into one of the pockets in her dress.

"Right," she said, brightening. "It's time for my favorite part. Lucas, come on down." He turned to go into the hallway that led out to the arena floor. "I might need to work a little more on my first badge teams," she mused. "My win rate with them hasn't been where I'd like."

"How high should it be?" I asked.

"Oh, about half," she said. "But it's been down recently, even before I had to take a little time off."

When Lucas appeared beside me on the arena floor, Roxanne gestured us across to the other side. "I don't have the Badges with me," she said. "I always preferred to do this in a place that felt more ceremonial."

She led us down the hallway she had come out of, into a room that was completely undecorated, save for a giant Stone Badge on the floor. The three other walls also had hallways leading somewhere else, probably to where Roxanne lived.

"Wait just a second while I get the Badges," she said, walking toward the door on the opposite side of the room. Lucas and I stood silently, occasionally shooting each other nervous glances as we waited. Roxanne came back a couple minutes later, a big smile on her face.

"Alright, like I said, this is my favorite part. Come here and stand on the Stone Badge." Lucas looked at me before walking over to the center of the room. I followed him.

"Lucas Presnett," she said when we stood on the Stone Badge, "you have defeated the Rustboro Gym. With my authority as Gym Leader, I present to you the Stone Badge. This is an official designation of your victory over the Gym."

"Thank you," he said, as she pressed the Badge into his open palm.

"Brendan Birch," she said, turning to me, and I felt a rush of pride as I waited for the rest of her speech. "You have defeated the Rustboro Gym. With my authority as Gym Leader, I present to you the Stone Badge. This is an official designation of your victory over the Gym." She took my hand and placed the Badge into it, closing my fingers around it. It was hard and metallic, and cool to the touch.

"Congratulations, both of you," Roxanne said. She closed her eyes, then opened them with a smile. "See, it's a lot more fun than me just throwing it across the arena, isn't it?"

"It was definitely something," Lucas said, turning the Badge over in his hand.

"I also took the liberty of giving you both a stipend from the Gym funds," she said. "We're authorized to do that if we think the Trainers who defeat us wouldn't be able to continue the Gym Challenge without some help, or if they're financially dependent on someone else. It's not much, but it should let you keep supplied for a few weeks without having to drain the funds of the Labs you work with. Arceus knows they never have enough funding."

Lucas and I stared at her, eyes wide. "Uh, thank you. Thank you very much," I eventually choked out.

"You could also not mention that to your Professors, since that money goes to your own accounts, and use it to splurge on something nice for yourselves," she said with a devilish smile. "Really, I would do both. You've earned a treat."

"Thank you again, for the Badge and the help," Lucas said.

"Not a problem at all," Roxanne said. "Actually, there's one other thing I wanted to ask you."  
"What is it?" He asked.

"I can ask you now, or we can get Jonathan and go get some lunch. The Gym should be ready to go for my next match by now."

"Jonathan cleans the Gym by himself," I asked?

"Oh, no," Roxanne said, shaking her head. It's all automated, but we like to have someone in the arena when the cleaning process happens, just in case something goes wrong. I'll go see if he's ready."

She walked back out into the arena and came out with Jonathan a few moments later. "Alright, there's a nice little café down the street we can go to," she said. "I like to go there every once in a while."

Roxanne led us out a side door and onto the sidewalk. The walk down to the café was a little awkward, partly because Lucas and I had absolutely no idea how to socialize with two adults we'd met that morning. Roxanne and Jonathan made small talk as they walked ahead of us.

Once we got to the café and gotten our food, which Roxanne insisted on paying for, despite our protests ("Really, it's no problem at all. The League pays me more than well enough."), Lucas asked Roxanne what she'd wanted to ask him.

"Oh, it was more of an excuse to get you to come get lunch," she said, eating an onion that had fallen out of her sandwich. "I did want to know how you came up with that trick with your Shinx, though. I'd never seen anything like that before."  
"Oh, well," he said, "I was looking up Rock-types native to Hoenn so I could see what you might use in our match, and that led to me reading about Nosepass' magnetic abilities. I figured Shinx could run a current through metal that got close enough to Nosepass. I didn't think it would work as well as it did, though."

"Interesting," she said. "I don't face many Electric-types, not all that surprising, I guess, so I had no idea that could happen."

She didn't say anything, else, so I took the opportunity to ask something I'd been thinking about for a while "Hey Jonathan," I said, "You said earlier that you make Poké balls, and Roxanne mentioned you asking your boss about them? Do you have another job besides being the referee?"

"My brother's actually the referee," Jonathan explained. "But he's been feeling sick, so I took a few days off to let him recover. Not like my boss was going to say no when the Gym Leader personally requested I be allowed to come help out."

"How is David, by the way?" Roxanne asked. "He sounded better when I called him a couple nights ago, but I haven't talked to him since."  
"He sounded mostly back to normal when I talked to him yesterday," Jonathan said. "Anyway, my day job is quality control for Poké balls produced in Hoenn. Devon Corporation produces most of the balls here, so that's where I work most days."  
"Jonathan got certified to officiate the Gym's matches when we hired his brother, just in case anything happened. David's generally been fine, but every once in a while he needs time off, and it's nice to have a real back-up plan. Not that Jonathan's the only one, but he's our first choice," Roxanne said. "Do you two know where you're going next?" She asked.

"I've been thinking about it," Lucas said. "I haven't really found a way that I think we should do, though."  
"I'd recommend finding a ship down to Dewford Town next," Roxanne said. "The Gyms are all going to shut down for a month for the Ever Grande Conference Tournament soon, and at this rate it's pretty unlikely you'd be able to get a battle in anywhere before the Tournament. It might be nice to spend the time off on an island, taking it slow, and then you'd have no competition for a battle spot once we finish the tournament."

"The tournament takes a whole month?" I asked, amazed that it would take that long.

"Six weeks, actually," Roxanne said. "I guess small towns aren't as affected by it as larger cities, and I doubt Professor Birch ever made a big deal of it. The Pokémon Leagues of every region have adopted the same model, which they all think works pretty well. You know that Gym Leaders give out Badges to Trainers who defeat them, but do you know how the League keeps track of how many Badges Trainers have?"  
"I assume it's with all our other records," Lucas said, frowning.

"Right. Each Badge comes with an ID chip that connects it to your account in case it's ever lost or stolen. That includes the date you won it. Trainers who get a Badge from each of the eight Gyms within a four year timespan are eligible to enter the Ever Grande Tournament. It starts with a regional tournament, then some Trainers get to go to Ever Grande City for the final tournament. That's why the Gyms have to shut down: we host the regional tournament both in-house and on property we own outside of the city."

"Why do you have to have regional tournaments?" I asked. "There aren't that many people who qualify, are there?"

Roxanne laughed. "Hoenn has about ten million people," she said. "Of those, nine million are registered Trainers, and two million have challenged a Gym. About three-fourths of those win a Badge, through the numbers go down quickly as you increase the number of Badges, and care about when they won the Badges. All in all, around fifty thousand people are eligible for the tournament every year. Only eight thousand, one hundred ninety-two (that's one thousand twenty-four per regional tournament) are entered. Even then the tournament takes six weeks."

When she saw the looks on our faces, she added, "Though we have some policies to add new talent every year. One is that you can't enter twice in a row: you have to have a year gap between entries. Another is that once your Badge expires, you have to battle the leader again, but this time, we give you our strongest teams. Lots of Trainers don't get more than a couple Badges their second time around. Third, registration doesn't open for the regional tournaments until the beginning of July, to let new Trainers complete the circuit. Fourth, and probably most important, any Trainer that collects all eight Badges in a year gets automatic entry to the regional tournament, no registration required."

"That sounds like a mess," I said.

"It's certainly a production," she agreed. "But it's actually a lot of fun, even if I don't like the part of my contract that says I have to be in Ever Grande for a whole month."

"So what are the regional tournaments like?" Lucas asked.

"I can give you a rundown of the whole thing, if you like," Roxanne said. Seeing Lucas and I nod, she continued, "The Trainers in the regional tournament are split into groups of eight, all thousand plus of them, and do round-robin matches against the other Trainers in their group. The top two Trainers advance to the Ever Grande stage, where they do the same thing, though there's two thousand of them this time. Once the top two in those groups are decided, they're thrown into a random draw for a single elimination tournament, though you're guaranteed to not play someone from your regional group until the semi-finals, and your Ever Grande group until the finals."  
"Ugh, this whole thing makes my head hurt," I said. "Why can't they do this simply?"  
"Because simple doesn't work," Roxanne said. "I wish it did, but they've been working to make these tournaments more accurate at finding the best Trainer without taking months, and this is how they do it. Then there's some nonsense with the Elite Four, but I don't know anything about that. Not my job and all."

We said good-bye shortly after that, making sure to thank Roxanne again, for the Badges and lunch ("You won those yourselves, don't thank me"), and went back to the Pokémon Center.

"So, what did you think of her plan to spend the vacation time on island?" I asked.

"I think this would be a good chance to go back to our jobs, actually," Lucas said. "I mean, it's a wasted seven weeks if we just go down there and loaf around. Why don't you call Professor Birch and see if there's anything he needs form us, and I'll call Professor Rowan and see if there isn't anything he has for us to do."  
I didn't really like to admit it, but Lucas probably had a point. And besides, there'd almost certainly be enough time for a vacation once we finished with whatever menial task Dad wanted us to do, unless Professor Rowan wanted us to spend a month with him.

I walked over to the computer and called the Lab's number, which I had memorized by this point. I heard Lucas ask the Nurse on duty how to dial long distance before Joshua picked up.

"Hey, Brendan, how are you?" He asked.

"Good," I said. "Lucas and I just got back from Rustboro Gym, actually."  
"Hopefully with a Badge each," Joshua said.

"Yep," I said, pulling mine out of my pocket. "Won this morning."

"That's great news!" Joshua said."But I don't think you were calling just to show off the Badge. Was there something you needed?"

"Yeah," I said, "Roxanne told us that all the Gyms in Hoenn are about to go on mandatory six weeks vacation for the League Tournament. Lucas and I figured we'd see if you or Professor Rowan needed anything instead of just lounging around somewhere for a month and a half."

"Oh, yeah, I completely forgot about that," Joshua said. "We never really worry about that down here since it doesn't affect our work. I think your dad's covered most of the fieldwork we need, and I don't think it's really necessary that you come back here just to sit in a the lab all day doing menial labor. Have you called Professor Rowan?"

"Lucas is on the phone with him now," I said, "But I thought I'd try you, too, just in case. Going just about anywhere in Hoenn will be faster than making a trip up to Sinnoh."

"That's certainly true," he said. "I don't think we need you for anything, though, so I'd go ahead and take whatever Professor Rowan has. It'll be a good chance for you to go to a new region. That seems to have been a good experience for Lucas."

We talked for a few more minutes before I hung up. Lucas was still on the phone with Professor Rowan, so I sat down on one of the couches and waited. He came over after a little while.

"Is there anything here that needs doing?" He asked.

"Nope," I said. "Everything seems to be under control in Littleroot for the first time in recorded history." Lucas laughed at that. "So, does Professor Rowan have anything for us?"

"Yep," he said, "Though it's nothing particularly glamorous. He was going to send a couple people out to Eterna Forest to do some observations on the local Pokémon. Apparently something's come by and spooked them. He's getting us tickets to a ship that's headed to Goldenrod City in Johto, and from there we catch another ship to Canalave City, where he'll meet us."  
"Alright," I said. "So when do we leave?"

"The next ship up to Goldenrod leaves Wednesday, so we'd get to Sinnoh next weekend. Not the fastest trip, but it works. Professor Rowan also said that the Sinnoh League, the Lily of the Valley Tournaments, is held in the early summer, so we could go to Gyms there while we were in Sinnoh."

"If they've got the same four-year deal going on, I guess there wouldn't be any harm to it," I said. "And I guess it would be best to keep busy wherever we are, and try not to make a ton of trips back and forth."

"That's what I was thinking. It's not like we started out with a goal of getting to those tournaments, anyway, they just gave us some direction of where to go," Lucas said, shrugging. "And besides, wouldn't it be something to get to do both?"

"I think that might be a bit out of our reach," I said with a laugh.

"Maybe, but there's nothing wrong with dreaming."

Well, he had a point there.

* * *

**That's it for fun times at the Rustboro Gym. Brendan gets out with a Badge, and they learn that there isn't going to be another Hoenn one for a while. The good news is that there's always something for the two of them to do. So it's off to Sinnoh, to help Professor Rowan with a couple things, then take a shot at a couple Gyms there.**

**On another note, this chapter will almost certainly get me to 2,500 views on this story, unless everyone decides to stop reading or I'm super productive while I'm away this week. Thank you all for reading this silly story of mine. If you'd have told me when I started writing this almost as a joke two years ago that people would willingly read a chapter 2,500 times, I'd probably never have started. **

**Fox**


End file.
